Skip to main content

Full text of "The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1099 to 1291 A.D"

See other formats 


fa./ 



THE 



LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



1099 TO 1291 A.D. 



BY 



LIEUT.-COL. C:*R:' CONDER, LL.D., M.R.A.S., R.E., 

Author of " Tent Work in Palestine" " Heth and Moab" etc. 




PUBLISHED BY THE 

COMMITTEE OF THE PALESTINE EXPLORATION FUND, 
24, HANOVER SQUARE, LONDON. 

1897. 
[All rights reserved. ] 




V 



LONDON : 

HARRISON AND SONS, PRINTERS IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY. 
ST. MARTIN'S LANE. 




CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

PREFACE v. 

CHAP, I. PETER THE HERMIT . i 

,, II. THE MARCH TO ANTIOCH ... 28 

,, III. THE FOUNDING OF THE KINGDOM 55 

,, IV. THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM 75 

,, V. THE Loss OF THE KINGDOM 119 

,, VI. THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE 161 

VII. THE NATIVE LIFE IN PALESTINE 215 

., VIII. THE THIRD CRUSADE 251 

,, IX. THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS 294 

,, X. ST. Louis ... ... ... ... ... ... 344 

,, XL THE TARTARS 366 

,, XII. THE Loss OF ACRE 386 

CONCLUSION .. ... 414 

INDEX 429 



H 2 



MAPS. 



MAP OF WESTERN PALESTINE SHEWING THE LATIN 
FIEFS .. - 

MAP OF SYRIA WITH CRUSADING NAMES ABOUT 1180 
A.D. 



PREFACE. 



THE sources on which we depend for history of the 
time of the great Crusades, and which have been used 
by Gibbon and Michaud, are well known and accessible. 
They include the Chronicles of Foucher of Chartres, 
who accompanied Robert of Normandy (1095-1124 A.D.), 
and of Raymond d'Agiles, who was also present at the 
conquest of Antioch, with that of Albert of Aix, and 
the great history of William, Archbishop of Tyre, which 
was begun in 1182 and closes in 1184.* These I have 
read in the great collection of Bongar's Gesta Dei Per 
Francos (Hanover, 161 1), which also includes the impor-* 
tant description of later events by Jacques de Vitry, 
Bishop of Acre, written about 1220 A.D.f The Moslem 
accounts include Boha ed Din's life of his master 
Saladin about 1200 A.D., and the later works of Kemal 
ed Din, Mejr ed Din, Abu el Feda, and Makrizi, with 
El Edrizi's geography about 1150 A.D. The full details 
of King Richard's expedition are given in the contem- 
porary account of Jeoffrey de Vinsauf, written about 
1 200 A.D. ; and for the Crusade of St. Louis we have 
Joynville's Memoirs, the travels of Rubruquis, and Marco 

* Continued by Ernoul, squire of Balian of Ibelin to 1228 A.D., and by 
Bernard the Treasurer, who wrote in 1320 A.D. 
t He brings down his history to 1218 A.D. 



VI PREFACE. 

Polo, all full of vivid pictures of the age. The pilgrim 
geographies now published by the Palestine Pilgrim 
Texts Society are equally important, and well known ; 
and even the later work of Marino Sanuto throws light 
on many questions, while the travels of Benjamin of 
Tudela explain the condition of the Jews in the East 
about 1 1 60 A.D. I have not thought it necessary to 
give exact citations in every case, where sources so well 
known have been consulted. 

The object of this volume is, however, not so much 
to relate the history of Crusades, as to present a picture 
of the curious social conditions which resulted from 
the establishment of a feudal society amid Oriental 
surroundings, and to trace the growth of civilisation 
and prosperity during the two centuries of Latin rule. 
The period is one of the most interesting in history, 
and the results of Frank colonisation in Palestine were 
far-reaching and important. 

A large amount of material also exists, which has not 
as yet been utilised fully in treating these questions.* 
French antiquaries and especially Rey have dili- 
gently collected the contemporary documents, which 
relate to the tenure of land, and to the gifts and sales 
to the Church and to the great Military Orders. Herr 
Rohricht in Germany has, quite recently, reduced to 
chronological order a list of 1,500 documents, of the 
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which relate to the 



* The Crusades, by Archer and Kingsford (1894), is a resume of the 
chronicles, and contains little that is new. It cites no authorities, and 
makes no use of the recent works here mentioned. 



PREFACE. Vll 

Kingdom of Jerusalem. The geography of the age was 
only imperfectly understood before Palestine was sur- 
veyed, and the Norman buildings churches and castles 
have now been planned and photographed, and many 
interesting inscriptions collected from them.* It thus 
becomes possible to give a picture, both of the country 
and of its populations, in the twelfth and thirteenth cen- 
turies, such as could not formerly be drawn ; and, though 
Rey has done much towards the study of social condi- 
tions, the wealth of illustration found in the works of 
Jeoffrey de Vinsauf,f Joynville, Rubruquis, and others, 
has not as yet been fully utilised, nor are the peaceful 
relations between Franks and Orientals generally recog- 
nised. These circumstances may perhaps excuse the 
present attempt to draw a picture of the Latin Kingdom 
of Jerusalem. 

C. R. CONDER. 



* The account of the Latin buildings within the limits of Palestine is 
taken from the plans and descriptions which I prepared when in command 
of the Survey of the country, when also I studied the mediaeval topography. 
The details I have published in the Memoirs to the Survey (six volumes 
quarto) ; but the map of the mediaeval topography I have since compiled 
from the researches of Rey and Rohricht, with additions due to the new 
topographical information. The map of Jerusalem which I compiled in 
1883 for the Jerusalem Volume of the Memoirs is used in Archer's 
Crusades, p. 119, as well as my notes on the Citez de Jherusalem. In his 
Crusade of Richard 1 he adopts the results of my study of the march to 
Jaffa, first published in 1875. 

t Sometimes attributed to Canon Richard, of Holy Trinity, London 
(who wrote in prose and verse), on the evidence of two passages quoted 
by a fourteenth century writer. One of the MSS. , however, bears the name 
of the real author. In the same way an attempt was once made to show 
that Joynville's Memoir was not authentic. 



LIST OF AUTHORITIES. 



Bengal's Gesta Dei Per Francos . Hanover, 1611. 

Guizot's William of Tyre. 1824. 

Rohricht's Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani. 1893. 

Key's Colonies Franques. 1883. 

De Vogue's Eglises de la Terre Sainte. i860. 

,, Temple de Jemsalem. 1864. 

Publications of the Palestine Pilgrim Texts Society. 1886-96. 
Memoirs of the Survey of Western Palestine. 1884. 
Bonn's Early Travels in Palestine, 1848. 
,, Chronicles of the Crusades. 1871. 
Pinkerton's Travels. Rubruquis and Marco Polo. 1819. 
Yule's Marco Polo. 1871. 
Robinson's Biblical Researches. 1852. 
Gibbon's History of the Crusades. 
Michaud's Histoire des Croisades. Edit. 1877. 
Besant and Palmer's Jerusalem. 1888. 
G. le Strange's Palestine under the Moslems. 1890. 
Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, North China Branch. 1859-86. 
Chinese Recorder. 1868-86. 

Green's Short History of the English People. 1892. 
Publications of the Societe de L'Orient Latin. 1885. 
Hughe's Dictionary of Islam. 1885. 
Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 1837. 
Archer's Cnisade of Richard I. 1893. 

, , Crusades. 1 894. 

Schulten's Boha ed Din. Arabic and Latin. Leyden, 1732. 
William's Middle Kingdom. 1883. 



THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

TO 1291 A.D. 



CHAPTER I. 
PETER THE HERMIT. 

WITHOUT the gates of Jerusalem crowds of ragged and 
starving pilgrims sate disconsolate. Rude and unkempt, 
half-naked, sunburnt, and dusty, they lingered round 
the walls, where the lepers crouched on the dunghills ; 
and waited in hopes that some goodly company of rich 
bishops, or courteous knights might in pity help them 
to fulfil their vows. For in the dark gate houses, under 
the towers, the savage Turkish guards were lounging 
wild Turkomans and Kharezmian Afghans, in chain 
armour, with shining bucklers, bows, spears, and scimi- 
tars, and from beneath their steel caps looked out 
heavy Tartar faces, scowling in hatred and contempt 
on the stranger. The pilgrims had come from western 
Europe, by a long land journey full of perils, extending 
for two thousand miles over mountain and desert, 
through the countries of the half-pagan Hungarians, the 



2 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

crafty Greeks, the lawless Turks of Phrygia, the fanatic 
Arabs of the Syrian shore cities. Or they had endured 
the miseries of the sea, in crowded galleys dragged 
against the wind, by the labour of the hopeless slaves at 
the oar. The Franks, the Burgundians, the Normans 
and Bretons, the stolid Germans, and passionate Italians, 
who gathered in this famishing crowd, were scarcely 
less wild and lawless than the armed Turkomans who 
denied them entrance to the city. After enduring so 
many dangers and hardships, now within a short half 
mile of their goal, the way was barred by a toll ; and a 
gold piece exacted of those who had not even silver 
wherewith to buy bread. The sinner, the criminal, and 
the pious, were mingled together, all alike desiring to 
lay their foreheads on the stone of that Sepulchre where 
sins were forgiven, and guilt washed away, and vows 
fulfilled, and blessings granted. Only the little piece 
of gold was needed to secure everlasting pardon, con- 
solation, and peace. Yet most among them were con- 
demned to die within sight of the goal of hope, and 
their bodies were cast into the pits of the Potter's Field, 
where the dust of their bones still powders the floor 
knee deep. 

At times some generous seigneur paced along, or a 
kindhearted bishop, and saved those then waiting from 
their fate. It was so in the year 1035 A.D., when 
Robert, Duke of Normandy, father of the Conqueror of 
England strongest among the peers of France, came 
barefoot in his pilgrim's gown, with staff and scrip, 
followed by a long train of barons, knights, and monks, 



PETER THE HERMIT. 



who patiently endured the insults of the Moslem mob.* 
For every pilgrim at the gate this generous prince paid a 
gold bezant to the Turkish governor, and all were free 
to pass within. It is said that the Moslem Emir, struck 
by such devotion, sent back the money, which Robert 
gave away again to the poor pilgrims he had succoured. 
Their prayers went up to heaven for him when, on his 
way back to his fair dukedom in the north, he died at 
Nicea. It was not often that such help came to the 
poor, though during all the century the nobles trooped 
in ever greater numbers to fulfil their vows. Before 
the Turkish conquest of the city in 1072 A.D., these 
bands had yearly increased in numbers, and even noble 
ladies joined these pilgrimages. The world, they said, 
was growing old : the dread day of wrath was upon 
them : men no longer tilled the earth, fearing the end of 
all things ; and hastened to absolve their sins before the 
Sepulchre. Thus, in 1054 A.D , the Bishop of Cambray 
set forth leading " the Lord's host," but never reaching 
Jerusalem. So in 1065 Siegfried, the lordly Archbishop 
of Maintz, brought with him seven thousand rich and 
poor,f camping under rich canopies of tapestry, drinking 
from vessels of gold and silver, his army strong enough 
to fight the brigands of Ramleh, and hand them over to 
the Egyptian governor. But after this the Holy Land 
became the battlefield of Egyptians and Turks from 
the north, and no man setting forth could tell whom 
he might find to be the Moslem master of Jerusalem. 

* Chronique de Normandie (Robinson, Bib. Res., I, p. 397). 
t See the authorities in Robinson, Bib. Res., I, p. 398. 



4 1 HE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

For the last twenty years of the century the Turko- 
mans, who took the city by siege in 1072, and pillaged 
it again three years later, when the remnants of the 
Kharezmian army fled from Cairo, cruelly oppressed 
not only the pilgrims from Europe, but also their 
brethren of the Greek Church, who had so long 
enjoyed religious freedom under the wise rule of Arab 
Khalifs. 

Pilgrimage was not a new feature of the age or of 
the faith. Among Christians it is traced to the third 
century after Christ ; and after the visit of Queen 
Helena, mother of Constantine, to Jerusalem, it became, 
in the fourth century, the practice of every rank and of 
many races in Europe. Men like the Bordeaux pilgrim 
had walked from France to Palestine, and had even 
returned to their homes, though for one who thus 
succeeded many failed or died. In the seventh century, 
before Muhammad conquered Mecca, pious Arabs were 
coming from all sides to see the sacred black stone, and 
the red statue of Hobal at the Kaabah ; and at the same 
time Chinese pilgrims endured endless dangers in reach- 
ing the sacred land of Buddhists in Northern India, 
adoring the holy Bo tree and the footprints of their 
master. Even in Mexico the Spaniards of the -sixteenth 
century found the Azteks making pilgrimages to distant 
temples, while in the time of St. Paul Ephesus was full 
of pilgrims, who came to see the statue of Artemis, and 
to carry home a silver model of her shrine. Looking 
back yet earlier we find three yearly pilgrimages com- 
manded to Hebrews by the Law ; and even Babylonians 



PETER THE HERMIT. 5 

and Egyptians journeyed to famous shrines to pay their 
vows to the gods. 

But when the gate of Jerusalem was passed the 
dangers of the pilgrims were not ended. The presence 
of the Latins was a constant peril to the native Chris- 
tians. The city was crowded, and their zeal led con- 
stantly to quarrels with the fanatics of Islam, in which 
all Christians suffered alike. The ancient hospice 
founded by Charlemagne, renewed in 1048 A.D. by 
merchants of Amalfi, and standing south-east of the 
Sepulchre churches, was only for the sick and dying. 
Others must lodge in the Greek taverns, where vice and 
extortion were rampant, or sleep under archways and in 
cellars, hiding from Turkish and Arab bandits. Not 
even in the churches were they safe. A small pretext 
was enough for persecution. The Turkomans would 
then invade the sanctuary, and dance upon the altars 
treading on the sacred cup, dragging the Patriarch from 
his throne by the beard,* wreaking their fury even on 
the marble of the sepulchre. Happy was the pilgrim 
who, when his vow was paid, could escape at length 
from Jerusalem in peace not held to ransom for some 
fancied insult to the Moslem faith. The indignation of 
Europe was slowly rising, as tales came back of such 
oppression, of sacrilege and martyrdom and general 
lawlessness in Palestine ; but the hour had not yet 
struck, though Hildebrand had preached the Crusade 
twenty years before. 

Among these luckless pilgrims, in the year 1094 A.D., 

* William of Tyre, I, 8, IO. 



6 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

was Peter, the unnoticed monk a knight of gentle birth 
from Picardy. He was then forty-four years of age, 
mean and insignificant of feature, low of stature, bare- 
footed and bareheaded, clad in the rough brown robe, 
and girt with the cord. Yet in his heart there burned 
an unsuspected fire, and the voice of the soldier, who 
had fled from the world to a hermit's life, could ring 
with an eloquence born of passionate faith, which was 
able to persuade the hearts of men. He knelt in the 
poor chapels which the piety of Michael IV, Emperor 
of Byzantium, had raised some sixty years before on 
the ruins of the churches of Modestus. " Very small 
oratories "* they were, where once the great Basilica of 
Constantine, with roof of gold and pillar capitals of 
silver, had filled the whole space in which they were 
enclosed. The great wealth of Constantine's fane had 
been seized by Persian worshippers of Ormuzd, when 
they burned the building in 614 A.D. The ruins of the 
chapels of Modestus survived the persecution of El 
Hakem, who destroyed them in 1010 A.D. ; and the 
buildings now standing were erected in 1037 A.D., by 
treaty with El Mustansir, the Khalif of Egypt, grand- 
son of El Hakem. On the steep rock of Calvary a 
low arched chapel covered the altar. Beneath was the 
cavern of Golgotha holding the skull of Adam. A 
strange legend had already fixed itself to the site, 
telling how Seth had brought the seed from Paradise, 
which, placed in Adam's mouth, grew into the tree of 
which the Cross was made. How, on Lebanon, it escaped 
* Will. Tyre, VIII. 3. 



PETER THE HERMIT. 



the Flood,* and was cut down to be used by Solomon for 
the Temple bridge, and trampled under feet by men until 
the Queen of Sheba came to rescue and adore. How, 
on the rock of Calvary, the Saviour's blood fell through 
the earthquake chasm on to Adam's skull, from this tree 
which had become the Cross. How Helena had found 
it in the pit beneath the hill, and once more the sick 
were healed, and the dead were raised by virtue of the 
sacred wood, anointed with the fragrant '' oil of mercy " 
which came from Paradise. But no Cross now stood 
on Calvary, and the few fragments that were left were 
hidden at Lydda and Byzantium, or scattered through 
the Christian world. Only the crosses brought by 
pilgrims were strewn upon the hill. 

From Calvary the pilgrim passed by steep, narrow 
steps down to the court-yard, and eastwards to the 
cavern chapel, which was lighted only from its dome, 
standing on heavy pillars capped with the basket 
capitals of the time of Modestus. It was a gloomy 
vault in which men said the pious Helena had watched 
her workmen delving for the Cross. Above and to 
the north they showed the Pillar of Flagellation, with 
finger - prints of Christ. Yet further north a colon' 
nade led to the little chapel of the Prison, where Christ 
awaited execution ; and west of this the Holy Tomb 
itself stood in the round church, which was adorned 
with pictures in brocade and gold, and others painted in 

* Publications of Soc. de L'Orient Latin, III, p. 158, from the Con- 
tinuator of W. Tyre, 1261 A.D. See also A. de Gubernatis' Mythologie 
des Plantes, Vol. I, pp. 7-13; from the igth chapter of the Gospel of 
Nicodemus, and later sources. 



8 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

oil and glazed, showing the prophets of Israel, and the 
Saviour riding on the ass.* In the centre rose the 
chapel covering the tomb itself, adorned with coloured 
marbles, and hung with silver lamps. To north and south 
were other stations, of Mary Magdalen, St. John, and 
Trinity, and on the outer wall of these the " Mother of 
God " was painted in a fresco of Byzantine quaintness, 
supporting with her long thin fingers the holy babe, and 
crowned, like Him, with cross divided aureole.f 

Other more terrible pictures on the whitewashed 
walls presented to the pilgrim Heaven and Hell the 
day of wrath which Christians then believed to be 
so soon to come.} Such pictures still exist in the 
Armenian Church of St. James, and, in the ruins of 
Crusaders' monasteries, might be seen not twenty years 
ago. The saints fly up to the great throne on which 
the Pantokrator sits in Paradise, and peacock-winged 
angels throw upon their shoulders the resurrection 
garments white and shining ; while, on the other hand, 
the eagle-footed demons, with tiger fangs and hairy 
ears, are driving with their tridents naked souls (some 
pierced with the prongs) into the gaping jaws of the 
great dragon, whence issue the long tongues of fire from 
Hell. 

Such were the sights which Peter saw in Jerusalem. 
High above the chapels of the western city loomed the 
great dome of the Arab mosque, in its broad court on 

* Nasr-i-Khusrau, p. 59, English translation, a description written 
1047-8 A.D. 

t Saewulfs description, IIO2A.D. 
Nasr-i-Khusrmt. 



PETER THE HERMIT. 



the eastern hill, which none but Moslems might 
approach, and where the shield of Hamzah rich with 
Persian filigree lay beside the foot-print of Muham- 
mad, pressed on the sacred rock in that mysterious 
night when angels and prophets welcomed him from 
heaven to heaven, until he reached the awful stillness of 
the veil, when naught was seen, and naught heard save 
the creaking of the iron pen writing decrees of fate. 

From station to station Peter followed with the rest, 
praying in silence or wondering at the maimed rites of 
Greeks and Copts, Syrians, Georgians, Jacobites, and 
Armenians for the city was full of Christians of the 
East, full also of Jews,* who were dyers and traders, or 
pilgrims to the Holy House. At night he talked with 
Simeon, the Patriarch, bewailing the sorrows of their 
common faith ; and from him first perhaps came words 
which served to rouse a great idea in his heart : " When 
the cup of tribulation is full," said Simeon, " God will 
send the Christians of the West to help the Holy City." 

At length, either in the darkness of Helena's Chapel, 
or when he knelt wearied before the Sepulchre, or 
perhaps on the hill of Calvary, there came to Peter a 
voice. " Arise, Peter," it said, " the time is come. Go 
forth and tell the tribulations of My people. The time 
is come that My servants should be succoured, and that 
My holy places should be free." 

In later days men loved to believe in more than the 
voice.t They said that Peter rested for a moment his 

* Nasr-i-Klnisrati, p. 23. 

t Felix Fabri, 1483 A.D. , Vol. II, Part I, p. 291. English translation of 
the Pal. Pilgrim Texts Society. 



10 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

weary limbs before the Sepulchre, and prayed and saw 
the glorified body of the Risen Lord come forth from the 
tomb, who, looking on him, uttered the command, " Rise 
up, Peter, and haste to Rome, and say to Urban, Pope of 
Rome, thus saith the Lord, ' because of the greatness of 
My Name I have given My holy tomb to them of the 
West, that they may manifest Me to unbelievers, and 
Avorship at My holy places to the saving of mankind.' " 
Then the vision faded, and Peter went out to preach to 
Europe the Holy War. 

Let us consider, then, the Asia that he left, the Europe 
that he reached in safety by the toilsome road through 
Byzantium, and the many causes which led to Peter's 
voice becoming powerful to change the history of 
Europe and of Asia alike ; for even popes in former 
days had preached the Holy War in vain, and statesmen 
had cared as little for the pilgrims' woes as did the 
eager traders of Italy, who were growing rich among 
the Moslems ; or the proud Normans who, in Sicily 
and in England, were carving with their swords broad 
kingdoms nearer home than Palestine. 

The old days of peace and tolerance, and the glories 
of the great civilising Arab empire, had passed away 
two hundred years before the times of Peter. When 
Charlemagne, the German Emperor, had ruled nearly 
all Europe, and aimed at empire in Byzantium, Hariin 
"the Just" was Khalif at Baghdad, swaying an united 
Islam from India to Egypt, trading with China, prayed 
for at Mecca and Cairo, spreading abroad the know- 
ledge of science and philosophy, which, as yet, had not 



PETER THE HERMIT. 



reached an university of Paris. By him the keys of 
Jerusalem were sent to Charlemagne, with an invitation 
to rebuild the churches of the Holy Land. Rich robes 
and spices then were brought to Spain and France by 
Jewish merchants. An elephant even was sent by the 
Khalif to the Emperor. Venetians and Genoese 
already traded by Byzantium to the Caspian and the 
Oxus, and the peaceful future of civilisation seemed 
secure. But when these great rulers passed away, dis- 
sensions soon arose alike in Europe and in Asia. The 
old quarrel, which divided Islam ever since the death of 
Omar, broke forth again. The empire of the Khalif 
fell in pieces slowly, and the two sects of Shiah and 
Sunnee renewed their hatred. The mystic philosophy 
of the Shiah followers of Aly, the prophet's son-in-law, 
and mourners for Hasan and the martyred Hosein 
opposed the orthodoxy of the great Khalifs both of 
those who sprang from Abu Sofian, Muhammad's rival, 
and reigned in Damascus, and of those who claimed 
descent from Abbas, Muhammad's uncle, and who for 
one glorious century ruled ever increasing dominions 
from Baghdad. The house of Abbas decayed, and a 
new power rose in Western Asia, when the Turks from 
the Oxus pushed westwards under the Seljuks.* As in 
the West (in 987 A.D.), Hugh, Count of Paris, protec- 
tor of the degenerate Carlovignians, usurped the king- 

* The Turks were already known to the Byzantine emperors in the 
sixth century. Embassies from Justinian and his successors visited the 
Chagan in the Altai mountains. Their dominions extended to the Oxus, 
and to the borders of Persia. Heraclius was allied with the Khozar 
Turks in the Caucasus against Chosroes, in 625 A.D. 

C 2 



12 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



dom, so in the East, after subduing Persia, Toghrul Bey, 
grandson of Seljuk, for services to the Khalif in con- 
quering revolted provinces, was made, in 1055 A.D., 
Emir el Omara (" chief of the forces "), and, under the 
ancient Turkish title of Sultan, became the ruler of 
Islam. Alp Arslan (" the brave lion "), his nephew, 
succeeding in 1063, had already conquered Asia Minor 
in 1071 A.D., taking captive Romanus Diogenes, the 
Byzantine Emperor. On his assassination his son, 
Melek Shah, succeeded the greatest of the Seljuks 
who from 1073 A.D. (after the conquest of Syria) 
governed from Egypt to the laxartes, from the gates 
of Byzantium to Kashgar and the borders of India, a 
Turkish empire won in little more than half a century, 
in which El Muktadi, the Khalif at Baghdad, was no 
longer more than the religious head of Islam. The 
Seljuks professed the strictest Sunnee orthodoxy, but 
the wild Turkomans whom they led from Central Asia 
the Kharezmians, Kurds, and Uigurs, who commanded 
their armies and ruled their great provinces cared little 
for the teaching of Islam, and despised its civilisation 
as much as they despised the creed of Greek or Latin 
Christians. Wherever the Turkish rule spread, oppres- 
sion and persecution followed, and the Arab tolerance 
was forgotten. 

Egypt had already been lost to the Sunnee Khalif 
through the rebellion of its governor Ibn Tulun in 880, 
and in 910 A.D. a new leader arose, announcing himself 
to be a Mahdi, and claiming descent from Fatima, the 
Prophet's daughter. This rebel, who had fled from 



PETER THE HERMIT. 



Baghdad, established the Shiah creed in Africa, and 
from Kairwan the Fatimites advanced to the Nile half 
a century later, and founded Cairo. Their pirate fleets 
infested the Mediterranean, and ravaged the shores 
of Italy and Sicily. From Cairo Muez advanced into 
Syria, and the fanatical Shiah persecuted the Christians, 
until El Hakem destroyed their churches in 1010 A.D. 
Sylvester II was the first Pope who attempted to rouse 
Europe against them, and about the beginning of the 
eleventh century the Pisan ships were raiding on the 
African coast ; but the successor of El Hakem was 
pleasure - loving and peaceful, and for a time the 
prosperity of Palestine began to revive. In the middle 
period of the century its cities were rich and populous* : 
the ships of Greeks and Franks traded on its coasts. 
In Tripoli the sugar-cane was cultivated ; its gardens 
flourished with citrons, oranges, and bananas ; its strong 
walls were guarded with balistae. The rose gardens of 
Gebal bloomed in a time of peace, and paper of the 
papyrus of its river became famous. But the Fatimile 
Khalif, El Mustansir, was only a child when he acceded 
in 1037, and the power of the Turks pressed hard on 
his northern provinces. During his reign, in 1072, the 
Kharezmian general, Atsiz, besieged and took Jeru- 
salem, and invaded Egypt. He was defeated, and his 
scattered army massacred in Syria ; but stronger 
leaders came to join him at Damascus, when Tutush, 
son of Alp Arslan, after executing Atsiz as a punish- 
ment for defeat, advanced to the borders of Egypt. 

* Nasr-i-Khnsrau, pp. 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 20, 21, English translation. 



14 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



Ortok Ibri Eksek, a general under Tutush, and himself 
a Turkoman, was made the governor of Syria under 
the Seljuk sultan, and the Sunnee once more super- 
seded the Shiah, though the Moslems of Palestine were 
in great measure followers of Aly. The cruelties of 
Ortok and of his sons El Ghazi and Sukman, who ruled 
Jerusalem after Tutush was slain in battle by Borkiaruk, 
son of Melek Shah, in 1095 A.D., were among the chief 
causes of the first Crusade. In the year in which Peter 
visited Jerusalem (1094 A.D.) a new Khalif acceded in 
Cairo El Mustali, second son of El Mustansir ; and 
during his short reign, which saw the triumph of the 
Christians, the government was in the hands of his 
strong vizir, Melek el Afdal, who played a not unimpor- 
tant part in events about to be considered. 

Such, then, was the condition of Asia. The death of 
Melek Shah, and the fall of Tutush, led to the ruin of 
the Turkish empire in the North. The governors of 
provinces at Aleppo, Damascus, and Jerusalem no 
longer recognised a common suzerain. They fought with 
one another and with Egypt. The Moslems were bitterly 
divided by the mutual hatred of Sunnee and Shiah, and 
about 1096 Jerusalem rebelled, and for two years was 
independent of the Seljuks. Trade was paralysed, and 
peaceful pilgrimage became impossible, when Turk and 
Egyptian were struggling for Palestine ; and the Tartar 
Sunnee was as intolerant as the Shiah of the South. 
Islam was exhausted by such conflicts, and powerless, 
through its divisions, to present an unbroken front to any 
strong power able and willing to profit by its weakness. 



PETER THE HERMIT. 15 



In Europe, on the other hand, the various rivalries of 
nations and of princes were held down by a central power, 
daily growing stronger, and one which united men by 
a common bond of religion. It was, moreover, an age 
when ambitious princes had begun to look to the 
East for further conquests, when the vigour of the 
Normans was still not exhausted, and when they had 
proved, in Sicily, that neither Greek nor Saracen could 
stand before the Norman sword. The idea of a Crusade 
was not a new one. Sylvester II had preached it nearly 
a century before ; and Hildebrand had urged it* on 
Duke William of Burgundy, and on all Christendom 
only twenty years before Peter reached Europe. When 
Victor III succeeded Hildebrand a Crusade was preached 
in Italy, in 1086, against the Moslem pirates ; and a 
Christian army raided the African shores. But as yet 
the idea had not taken root : the European princes were 
intent on other aims ; and the pilgrims had not reported 
such cruelties as those of Ortok's sons ; nor had the 
traders yet brought word of the death of Tutush, and of 
the dissolution of the Turkish empire which followed 
In the year 1095 A.D. the hour struck ; and with the 
hour came the man whose voice could move the hearts 
of the masses. 

In Italy Urban II had now been Pope six years, 
and though expelled from Rome in 1091 A.D., had been 
restored in the year in which Peter first went out to the 
East. He lived to see Palestine conquered, and died in 
the very year in which Jerusalem was recovered. The 

* Greg. (VII) Epist. Lib., II, 37 and J, 46. 



1 6 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

policy of the Latin Church aimed not only at strength- 
ening Rome against the pretensions of the German 
Emperor, Henry IV, and of his nominee the anti- 
Pope but also at the gathering in of all . the Eastern 
sects, under the Papal sway, which in some small 
measure actually was brought about by conquest in 
Asia. Policy and religious feeling pointed the same 
way. The Pope became protector of the oppressed 
Christians of the East, and of the pilgrims from the 
West alike ; and among princes his power was also 
increased, by a cause which gave to him the right to send 
legates, to levy taxes, and to issue commands to kings. 
In Peter's zeal the shrewd Pope Urban saw an instru- 
ment by which he would do more than any had before 
been able to do to strengthen the power of the Holy 
See. 

The policy of the great trading cities of Italy, which 
already had extended commerce far into the Moslem 
world, tended naturally to the same ends. Without 
peace, tolerance, and strong rule in Asia trade must 
suffer, and there was little prospect of stability while all 
the ports of the Levant were threatened by war, and Con- 
stantinople trembling before the Turks of Asia-Minor. 
But there was also in the south of Italy a still stronger 
element of success, in the vigour and ambition of the 
Normans, In 1017 A.D. the Pope had invited Norman 
pilgrims to conquer Apulia, from the mingled Greek 
and Saracen foes of Rome. Within half a century the 
friends so invited became foes, and the Normans, under 
Robert Guiscard "the Wily," had fought against Leo IX 



PETER THE HERMIT. 17 

in 1053 A.D. at Civitella. After a ten years' struggle with 
the Saracens, Robert had won Naples and Sicily in 1080, 
and, making peace with the Pope, was re-established 
as lawful ruler of Apulia. He tolerated the Saracens 
and defeated the Greeks in Italy, and twice attacked 
Greece itself. He died in 1085, and his sons were now 
at war. Half a century had passed since the " wily " 
Robert reached Italy from Hauteville in Normandy, with 
five knights and thirty men. Yet the riches of their 
Saracenic* dominion were such that the Normans of 
Sicily were among the wealthiest of European princes. 
Boemund of Calabria, Robert's elder son by his first 
wife, was a man eloquent and accomplished, standing, 
it is said, a cubit above most men in height, who had 
learned war by his father's side, following him against 
the Emperor Alexius at Durazzo and Larissa. But the 
inheritance was given to his half-brother Roger, son of a 
princess of Salerno, from whom he took Tarento ; and 
now, with his uncle Roger, he was laying siege to the 
trading city of Amalfi, which faces the temples of 
Paestum on the north side of the bright bay of Salerno, 
where the Sorrento promontory runs out opposite the 
high peak of Capri. Instead of fratricidal war, and the 
ruin of Christian trade, a new ambition was offered 
now to Boemund by Peter and the Pope an Asiatic 
principality, to be won with the sword and destined to 
be held for nearl)> two centuries to come. 

From Rome, then, Peter was sent through Italy, to 
rouse the Norman, the Pisan, the Genoese, and the 

* The Saracen conquest of Sicily, dated from 827 A.D. 



1 8 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Venetian ; to gather armies and fleets ; and to employ 
the wealth which had grown from Moslem spoils, and 
from trade with Asia. Ambition and desire for wealth, 
no less than religion, urged the Italians to a venture 
which was no longer desperate. The sailors feared 
neither the Mediterranean which they knew so well, nor 
the pirates whom they had already beaten. The Italian 
Normans feared not the heats of Palestine, nor the 
Saracens, a race from whom Sicily had been won. They 
heard of allies from Provence, from Western Germany 
and France, and they were eager only to be first upon 
the ground. The siege of Amalfi was raised ; and a 
force of ten thousand horse and twenty thousand foot 
was ready to follow Eoemund and his cousin Tancred, 
the proud, rude, but chivalrous prince, whose name has 
been immortalised by Tasso as the hero of the Holy 
War. 

In Spain there was no hope of aid for Christendom. 
The Moslems were strong there still, and the Pope as 
yet was weak. The Arab civilisation, against which in 
the next century the papal influence was directed, was 
then civilising Southern Europe, and colouring the 
thought and culture of Provence. Science was studied 
in the Arabic tongue, in Andalusia and at Cordova, to 
which city learned men had travelled from Baghdad a 
century before. The rhyme which marks the cadence 
of the earlier chapters of the Koran is said to have 
first brought rhyming into poetry in France ; and Arab 
lyric and romantic poetry influenced the troubadours of 
Languedoc. Gerbert had brought from Barcelona a 



PETER THE HERMIT. 19 

knowledge of mathematics in 1003 A.D. ; and Arab 
cyphers were spreading over Europe from Spain, and 
replacing the clumsy Roman numerals. Adelard of 
Bath was just about to study Arabic among the Moors ; 
but a century must pass before Michael Scott would 
be considered a wizard, because at Toledo he was able 
to learn not only alchemy and astrology, but algebra, 
philosophy, astronomy, and mathematic sciences. 

We are not, then, surprised that Peter never went to 
Spain. The Holy War would find but few adherents 
in the Moorish lands : the fiat of the Pope had none to 
obey it where science and philosophy still flourished 
among Moslems. Neither went he to Eastern Europe, 
though Eastern Europe already, in great measure, pro- 
fessed allegiance to the Pope. The great quarrel with 
the empire had already arisen, when the nominee 
of Rome Rudolph of Suabia had been slain. The 
Prussians were still pagans, adoring Perkunas and other 
of the ancient Lithuanian gods of their earliest Aryan 
forefathers, though some of the Hungarian Mongols 
akin to the Turks had recently been converted to Latin 
rites. There was only one part of the empire whence 
help could come, namely, from the great state of Lotha- 
ringia, the home of Charlemagne's eldest son, where the 
sons of the Count of Boulogne traced descent, by the 
mother's side, from Charlemagne himself.* 

* Godfrey the Bearded, Duke of Lower Lorraine, died in 1069 A.D. 
His daughter Ida married Eustace II of Boulogne. Her three sons were 
Godfrey, Baldwin, and Eustace. Her elder brother, Godfrey the Hunch- 
back, had died in 1076. Bouillon in the Ardennes, from which Godfrey 
took his usually best-known title, was a lordship, which he sold to the 
Church for one thousand three hundred marks. 



20 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Of this family, Godfrey of Boulogne had still to do a 
penance for his wars against the will of Rome. He had 
followed the Emperor when but nineteen against Rudolph 
of Rhinefeld, Duke of Suabia, whom Hildebrand had 
named to the Imperial Crown. In the Imperial cause 
Godfrey had even entered Rome in 1083 A.D. Rudolph 
he is said to have slain with his own hand. But as yet 
he was only thirty-four years of age a free lance, 
nephew of the ruling duke, born at Boulogne, the eldest 
son of Count Eustace. Strong, prudent, just, and wise, 
even in his youth, Godfrey was loved and trusted by all. 
He too, like Boemund, was taller than most men, with 
handsome face and ruddy beard. He vowed to free 
Jerusalem as a penance for his sins against the holy 
father ; and to supply means he sold or alienated his 
estates the principality of Stenay, bought by the 
bishop of Liege, and the town of Metz, granted its free- 
dom for the citizens, in return for funds to carry on the 
Holy War. Twenty-four thousand Franks, and ten 
thousand knights, are said to have followed Godfrey 
and his tall dark brother Baldwin, and his cousin Baldwin 
du Bourg a company of three kings that were to be, 
besides Eustace the third of the brethren, who returned 
to become Count of Boulogne after the war. 

France, in the sense of a kingdom west of the Rhine, 
did not exist when Peter preached the Crusade. The 
kingdom of the French king extended over the Isle 
de France : his actual rule was from Paris to Orleans. 
The land of France was a feudal confederacy of peers : 
Eight great princes ruled eight great fiefs Burgundy, 



PETER THE HERMIT. 21 



Aquitaine, Normandy, Gascony, Flanders, Champagne, 
Toulouse, and Anjou. Lorraine and part of Burgundy 
and Provence were not yet French. The whole land 
was then full of robber castles, and few were the towns 
which as yet had gained any charter or rights of immu- 
nity against the barons' might. Philip, the French king, 
then of middle age, comely and good-natured in his 
youth, was sinking into sloth and vice, and his gluttony 
already marred his powers of action. He never took the 
cross, and Hugh of Vermandois, his brother, although 
he joined in the Crusade with Robert of Normandy, de- 
serted for a time during the early troubles, and on his 
way back, after Jerusalem was won, he died at Tarsus. 
The house of Hugh Capet had thus but little share in 
the triumph of the Cross: for Hugh, though brave and 
ostentatious, was indolent and frivolous. The men 
destined to be kings in Asia were made of sterner stuff. 

Among the other peers were princes of greater energy 
than the French. Robert of Flanders led the Prisons 
and Flemish men. He was the first to march to Byzan- 
t.um, with five hundred knights. He had usurped his 
nephew's place, and vowed to free Jerusalem in penitence. 
Raymond of St. Gilles and of Toulouse was rich and 
old, yet impetuous and ambitious, hated by his subjects 
for his obstinate tyranny, and feared as well for his 
violence. He owned large lands on the Rhone and 
Dordogne, in Gascony, Auvergne, Provence, Limousin, 
and Languedoc. He had fought beside the Cid against 
the Moors, and married Eloisa, daughter of Alphonso the 
Great. His wife and son went with him ; and an 



22 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

hundred thousand men, who marched to Lyons and the 
Rhone, crossed the Alps to Lombardy, and thence on 
by land to Constantinople. 

In the North the Normans had become even stronger 
than in Italy. It was not yet two centuries since Rollo 
had been baptised, and settled in Normandy as one 
among the twelve peers. It was not thirty years since 
William had conquered England, and but eight since he 
had died, leaving to Robert, his eldest but rebel son, the 
Norman fief which now he mortgaged for five years to 
his brother William Rufus ; and with money thus raised 
joined the Holy War, to expiate his sins against his 
father. With him came Stephen, Count of Blois and 
Chartres, poet and soldier, rich and careless, who, like 
Hugh of Vermandois, deserted at Antioch, and, like 
him, died later in the East, leaving his. son Stephen 
the grandson of the Conqueror to become in time 
the King of England. 

Such were the princes who now guided the popular 
enthusiasm to ends foreseen by well warned statesmen, 
knowing not only their own people but knowing also 
what had happened of late years in Asia. Among them 
six gained honour, power, and fame Godfrey and 
Baldwin, Boemund and Tancred, Raymond of Toulouse, 
and after these Baldwin du Bourg. A mighty host of 
fighting men, well armed and well provided, followed 
the princes from France and Italv r . Frenchmen and 
Lorrainers, Normans and Provencals,* with Auvergnats 
and Italians, and some from Spain and Burgundy, with 

* John of Wiirzburg, p. 41, English translation. 



PETER THE HERMIT. 23 

Saxons led by Edgar the Atheling nephew of the 
Confessor who came with Robert of Normandy ; and 
Flemings and Prisons from Flanders.* The Norman 
element prevailed most among them, and the German 
Frankish race of Eastern France. 

But such preparations, which brought some two 
hundred thousand fighting men together, under ex- 
perienced leaders, were not made in a day. After the 
Council of Piacenza, which, in March, followed Peter's 
return bearing letters from Alexius, the Emperor 
of the East, the Council of Clermont was called in 
November, 1095 ; and other meetings were held under 
Pope Urban in Rouen, Angers, Nismes, and Tours. 
Not till the middle of August following were the armies 
set in motion, but at Clermont in the tenth sitting, after 
the Peace of God had been renewed among the Latins 
a truce of princes to last during the Crusade the 
letters from the East were read, and Peter testified to 
sufferings of the Eastern Christians, and Pope Urban 
spoke in favour of the Holy War, and all the Council 
echoed with the famous shout of " Diex el volt " the 
war cry of the first Crusade. 

For popular impatience, and for the zeal of Peter, 
such preparation was all too slow. His own zeal and 
purity of purpose we need not doubt. He underwent 
all the hardships, passed through all the perils, failed 
only for a moment at Antioch, witnessed the taking of 
Jerusalem, and enjoyed one short hour of triumph, when 

* William of Malmesbury and Guibert (quoted by Gibbon, Ch. LVIII), 
speak of a few Scotch, Welsh, and Irish soldiers. 



24 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

the Syrian Christians hailed him as their saviour ; and 
then reaping neither reward nor dignity returned to his 
cell at Hui, and was heard of no longer when his task 
was over. But now in France and Italy he was the 
popular idol. He preached in town and country, in 
churches, or beside the crosses in the fields. He told 
men of the bitter persecution in the East, and of the 
voice that spake to him by Calvary. His words sank 
into the hearts of all, and cries of wrath mingled with 
sobs of penitence. They crowded to touch him, and 
carried off the rags of his robes as relics. Nay, it is said 
the hairs of the very mule on which the little monk 
rode over Western Europe were treasured. Sinners and 
robbers vowed a better life, and swore to set free from 
Turks the land hallowed by the feet of Christ. 

But many other motives wrought upon the crowd 
of serfs and villeins to whom he spoke, while Urban 
preached to princes. Such men had little interest in 
the land they tilled, and saw before them freedom from 
their slavery in Europe. Wealth and civilisation had 
not yet, in the West, bound the masses to their towns 
and fields. Many were outlaws and broken men, who 
owned no master who would feed them. Many for 
heavy crimes and sins were banned by the Church. 
Without the baron's command none of the villeins 
could leave their villages. Without the bishop's permit 
i none might go as pilgrims. But now, when every noble 
seemed about to sell or mortgage his estate, the bonds 
of the strong narrow feudal system, which alone could 
hold society together in these rough times, were relaxed. 



PETER THE HERMIT. 



Indulgences and pardons were promised to all who took 
the cross, and fighting men were summoned to accom- 
pany their barons. Women and children even were 
allowed to follow their husbands and fathers. Criminals 
the most desperate robbers, murderers, and violent 
men were not denied a share in the holy work room 
for repentance and for good services was given even to 
these. A mighty mob, equal in numbers to the army 
which was to follow, surged eastwards over Europe, 
led by Peter and by a single Norman knight, Walter 
Lackland a horde recalling to mind those which in 
earlier times had invaded Europe, when Huns and 
Alans came even into Western France, or when the 
Gauls of Brennus overran Galatia. It was the last 
of the great migrations of the Aryans, and was only 
excelled two centuries later when the Mongols burst 
out of Central Asia. But it was not to these that any 
benefit was to come. Through Germany and Hungary 
they went on their tempestuous way to Bulgaria. At 
Belgrade they scattered, harrying the flocks and herds 
for food ; and here they were slaughtered by a mixed 
Christian and pagan peasantry. Only a remnant camped 
with Walter near Byzantium, awaiting the coming of a 
second horde which Peter led. 

The second horde, entering a country where the first 
made enemies, suffered yet more than they had done. 
Forty thousand peasants entered Hungary, and sacked 
Semlin, and found Belgrade deserted. The German 
rear guards quarrelled with Bulgarians, and were slain, 
while women, children, and possessions were carried off. 

D 



^< 



26 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Their comrades who turned back were massacred in 
turn, and half the Christian host were thus cut off 
and perished before the Bosphorus was reached. 
Twenty thousand Germans, following these, were 
treacherously slain in Hungary. Another " army of 
the Lord," as it was called, led by the priest Volkmar, 
slew all the Jews in Mayence and Cologne, and harrying 
Eastern Europe a band of dissolute criminals, who 
observed no law or treaty they were put to death like 
sheep by the Hungarians. Out of these various bands 
an hundred thousand crossed the straits at Constanti- 
nople, and ravaged the lands of Nicomedia and Nicea. 
Germans and Italians quarrelled for the booty gained, 
and the Turkish governor of Nicea drew this' army of 
the Latins into a forest ambush, so that of all the host 
barely three thousand one man for every hundred who 
set out escaped to tell the tale. Peter himself fled 
back to Constantinople ; and long before the princes left 
their homes the bones of countless European peasants 
were blanching in the sun upon the shores of the Pro- 
pontis. 

Zeal and popular fury failed, where neither discipline, 
nor knowledge, nor money, nor arms were to be found ; 
and not by means of wild peasant hordes was Palestine 
to be won for the Christians. 

It is not because of any doubts as to the faith and 
enthusiasm of these poor victims of a mighty movement 
that the story told by the early chroniclers has thus 
briefly been sketched. Their lawless ravages were the 
results of terrible need : they starved in strange lands 



PETER THE HERMIT. 



because ill and hastily led. Yet from their fate we may 
learn how savage and untamed was the state of nations 
in that Europe which so suddenly poured whole popu- 
lations into Asia, and may see that the civilisation 
to be learned in the East had as yet hardly dawned on 
Western Countries. 



I) 2 



CHAPTER II. 

THE MARCH TO ANTIOCH. 

WHILE riotous mobs thus prejudiced the Christian 
cause in the eyes of the Eastern Church, and of the 
Eastern Emperor ; and while weary women and children 
asked, as each Hungarian or Bulgarian town appeared 
upon the endless road, whether that were Jerusalem, 
the armies of Lorraine, Provence, and Sicily were gather- 
ing towards Constantinople. Alexius seems to have 
little understood the greatness of the movement, or the 
masterful character of these princes from lands regarded 
by the Greeks as still barbarian. He asked for help 
from the West, whereby he might recover Syria and 
Anatolia lost to the Turks ; but behold there came an 
army so strong and great that its leaders took for 
themselves the lands which the Byzantines could not 
hold. He asked for restoration of the patriarchs to 
their thrones ; but behold they set their own Latin 
bishops in the vacant chairs. Alexius was weak and 
crafty ; his schemes were powerless against men who 
came not to help him, but rather to conquer for them- 
selves. The French king's brother Hugh was ship- 
wrecked in Epirus, and carried to the capital, where he 



THE MARCH TO ANTIOCH. 



was held a hostage for the fealty which Alexius claimed 
from the Latins. Godfrey's answer was quickly given. 
His army was marching in strict discipline, but now was 
loosed to plunder as it went. The emperor hastened 
to appease the Pranks, but none of the princes of Italy 
or Lorraine ever did homage or acknowledged Alexius 
as suzerain. Robert of Flanders, Robert of Normandy, 
and Stephen of Blois, less bold, admitted his claims, 
but none of these intended to remain in Asia. 

It was already autumn, or early winter of the year 
1097, when the great army gathered near Byzantium. 
From Normandy, Lorraine, and Southern France they 
came by land, through Servia and Bulgaria ; from Italy 
and Sicily they came by sea, embarking at Amalfi, Bari, 
and Messina. When the Italian galleys, sailing up the 
narrow Dardanelles through the Propontis the Straits 
of St. George they called it had passed the low white 
chalk ridges, and gained the Golden Horn, a city such 
as never yet most of the Latins had beheld burst on 
their sight.* Perhaps to some, coming in winter, it 
first revealed itself at dawn, when the light mists had 
rolled away ; and flushed with the pink haze they saw 
the mighty dome of St. Sophia sprinkled with the early 
snow, the strong towers, the gilded palaces, the count- 
less sails upon the still and shining waters. Already 
Jewish Galata climbed towards the upper platform of 
Pera, and Scutari, with its wooden Turkish houses, 
looked across the water from Asia. Already merchants 

* Byzantium, already contained a western force in the Varanger Guard 
(see Gibbon, Ch. LV), recruited from English and Danish colonists who 
fled from the Norman conquerors. 



30 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

gathered in this capital, coming by sea and land, from 
Egypt and Baghdad, from Media and Persia, from 
Russia, Hungary, Lombardy, and Spain* dealing in silks 
and furs, spices and precious stones, camlets and drugs. 
Venetians, Genoese and Pisans, Jews, Arabs and Arme- 
nians, vied in a commerce which was already pushed 
to Turkestan, and linked to India and China by the 
Arab fleets. The men of Provence and of Italy were 
not insensible to art and beauty ; but many of the 
Latins came from gloomier lands from dark castles and 
small fortresses frowning over squalid wooden villages. 
They were astonished at the wealth and luxury of Asia, 
and their hearts rejoiced thinking of the spoils that lay 
before them in the East, where Baghdad and Damascus 
were said to rival Byzantium. The Greeks, they said, 
were "like women," who could not fight for such an 
heritage. The ancient glories of Constantine and 
Justinian had passed away: the Byzantines, who once 
had stayed the Huns of Hungary! on their southern 
march, could now not even hold Nicea against the 
Turk. The vigour of the race was sapped by luxury : 
the empire had been weakened by the attacks of 
Hungarians and Russians ; the trade in cloth of gold 
and purple, in diamonds and rubies, had enervated those 
who once had marched to Persia to bring back the stolen 
Cross. But art and literature, science and knowledge, 
still survived ; and many were the lessons which the 

* Benjamin of Tudela, p. 74, Bohn's Early Travels in Palestine. 

t Hung-ar (" Hun land ') was a name originally given to a region on the 
Volga, and still existed there in the thirteenth century, as noted by Rubruquis, 
but it was transferred to Europe in the time of Attila (433-453 A.D. ). 



THE MARCH TO ANTIOCH. 



ignorant Latins were destined yet to learn in the old 
homes of religion and civilisation. 

Christmas was passed at Constantinople, and here 
the princes feasted and rested, flattered by Alexius, and 
triumphing through the city. They found the palace 
splendid with gilded walls and pillars, its golden throne 
crusted with gems, its galleries sculptured with wars of 
the ancients. In St. Sophia they admired the spacious 
galleries, the marble tracery, the mighty dome, the gates 
of brass. In the Pantocrator Church the monuments of 
Constantine and Helena rose like chapels of red jasper. 
The Greeks and Orientals in the streets and markets 
were robed in silk and cloth of gold a crowd as gay as 
a garden of flowers. The city was full of relics dried 
bodies of the saints and of holy things brought from 
Palestine when the Patriarch fled from Omar or from 
Chosroes ; the fragments of the Cross, the nails, the reed, 
and the sponge, which had so long, men said, protected 
Byzantium from the infidel. At Christmas time they 
saw, no doubt, in the Cathedral a mystery or miracle 
play perhaps that represented later, of the three 
children in the furnace, or the Lazarus boy dressed 
in flowers, or Judas who exploded in fireworks. In the 
At-Meidan the games no doubt were held to honour 
them as usual arrow contests on horseback, the jereed 
throwing, and the old Roman fights of the amphi- 
theatre, when lions and bears, leopards and wild asses 
were turned into the Hippodrome, under the walls of 
the palace, and Alexius looked down from his gallery 
crowned with gold and robed in garments covered with 



32 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

rubies. Such was the daily life of Byzantium for even 
four centuries after the first Crusade. 

But with the springtime came the season for war 
and conquest, and the army of the Latins crossed the 
straits to win Nicea from its Turkish master Suleiman 
Kilij Arslan a descendant of the Western Seljuks. 
The city, so famous in Christian memory as that where 
first an Emperor of New Rome had presided at a 
Council of bishops of the faith which half his subjects 
held, lay in the plain east of the Lake Ascanius, 
under an amphithreatre of wooded hills. It had three 
hundred and seventy towers, three gates, and an 
aqueduct from the mountains. The invading army 
appears to have numbered at least two hundred thousand 
men in all, who are said to have spoken nineteen 
languages ; and Nicea, the advanced post of the king- 
dom won by Alp Arslan some twenty years earlier, had 
perhaps but a small Turkish garrison. Yet it stood 
siege stoutly, and for months the Normans were de- 
tained, hammering its walls, striving to cross its ditches, 
and to undermine its towers. The defenders were 
supplied with provisions by water ways still open, until' 
the lighter galleys of the Normans were dragged over- 
land into the lake, when the citizens surrendered to the 
small Greek force sent by Alexius with the allies, and 
on the 25th of June the disgusted Normans saw the 
banners of the Emperor waving on the walls. During 
the siege they visited the camp of Peter's slaughtered 
host, and the forest where, according to their ordinary 
tactics, the Turks had fallen on it from an ambush. In 



THE MARCH TO ANTIOCH. 



the ruined camp the white stones of the altar still 
remained, and the ground on the battle-field was strewn 
with bleaching bones of the peasant horde. 

In the summer time, therefore, the march on Antioch 
began, and the success of this advance through Asia 
Minor astonished the world. Never before had such 
a march been attempted by the Christians, and never 
again did such attempt succeed. All the later expedi- 
tions perished in the mountains and deserts of this 
inhospitable land, and all future armies which gained 
the shores of Syria came by sea. The military wisdom 
of the Norman princes, and the cautiousness of their 
advance, with two strong leading divisions followed by 
the main body ; the strictness of their discipline, and 
the genius of their generals, made this single attempt 
successful when all others failed. 

The methods of Turkish warfare had already become 
known at Nicea, where a cavalry force was defeated 
before the siege began. The Turkish infantry was 
badly armed, and being partly composed of subject 
native tribes was unreliable. Their strength lay in the 
speed and valour of their horsemen. The Turkish 
cavalry rode on small horses famous for endurance.* 
They were lightly armed with coats of finer mail than 
that of the Normans, descending to the thigh, with skirts 
of silk falling below the knee. On the head they wore 
an iron hat, from which a conical white cap the ancient 

* See the account of the Burgundian knight Sir Bertrandon de la 
Brocquiere (Bonn's Early Travels in Palestine, pp. 363-366), which, 
though written about 1433 A.D., probably applies to Turks of the twelfth 
century. 



34 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Tartar headdress traced back to the days of the Hittites 
rose up to a high point. Their long loose trousers were 
tucked into wide knee boots of red leather with curling 
toes. Their arms were the mace with spikes and short 
handle, the scimitar, the round wooden target, and, above 
all, the bow and quiver on their backs. Like Kurdish 
bows those of the Turks were made of horn. They 
had thick strings of sinew pulled with the thumb, and 
short light arrows ; and though the aim was certain, the 
Turkish arrow had neither the force, nor could it cover 
the distance, of the grey" goose shafts of the Norman 
long bow. The horseman sat in a high hollowed saddle, 
with short stirrups, and knees bent forward giving little 
grip to the legs. The Turkish lance was neither as long 
nor as sharp as that of the Norman ; and the horseman, 
high above his small steed, was easily borne down by the 
superior weight of the tall rider and the heavy palfrey, 
if he awaited the charge. The Norman infantry, covered 
with mail and hidden behind the long shield, suffered 
but little from the arrows. The bowmen and cross- 
bowmen who stood behind the front rank, as it knelt 
with spears firmly fixed against the ground, could pierce 
the Turkish armour and kill their horses before they 
came in range for their own arrows to take effect. For 
steady troops awaiting attack, and relieved by a short 
charge of the knights upon the flanks, there was little to 
be feared. The danger lay in pursuit ; and experience 
soon taught the Crusaders to avoid such wiles of the 
enemy. The long two-handed swords and battle-axes, 
the slings and arrows, wrought havoc in the ranks of the 



THE MARCH TO ANTIOCH. 35 

Moslem infantry, but their cavalry could only be 
defeated when surrounded. 

The Turkish tactics were the same by which the 
Parthians had defeated Crassus. They made forced 
inarches at the gallop, in perfect silence, and in well 
ordered ranks ; suddenly surprising a foe while camping, 
or on the march, they swept down in several separate 
bodies, keeping as all experienced cavalry leaders 
have done a strong reserve to cover those whose charge 
was not successful. A fierce gallop sometimes broke the 
infantry of their enemy ; but when these stood firm the 
horsemen showered arrows on them and wheeled in 
flight. If followed by the knights they fled, waiting the 
scattering of the too-confident pursuers, and at a given 
signal turned again, and shot the horses or smote down 
the riders. Sometimes an ambush waited in the woods 
or valleys, and single knights were soon surrounded and 
overwhelmed by numbers. This was the Turkish method 
of fighting, against which the strength, the patience, and 
the' better arms of the Latins prevailed in many hard- 
fought battles. 

The first of these battles the only one of any import- 
ance till Antioch was reached was nearly lost through 
the impatience of the Christians, but it ended in a 
victory which left a clear road to the very gates of 
Syria. Boemund, with his Normans and Italians, set out 
eastwards, along the Sangarius, to gain the highway of 
the plains of Dorylseum. Kilij Arslan awaited him 
upon the heights some twelve miles north-west of the 
city, by the stream of Sareh-Su, and the ravine near 



36 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Dogorganleh, which the chronicler calls " The Valley of 
Gorgons," where ancient cave tombs pierce the rocks 
of the Kara Su, or "black water." Here the Crusaders 
camped beside the marsh, and in the morning forced a 
passage, placing the sick and the women in the midst, 
with three brigades of mounted knights. Robert of 
Normandy charged the Turkish horse, whose arrows 
were falling fast and thick, with the war cry " Dieu le 
veut a moi Normandie !" and as usual they fled, draw- 
ing the unwary Normans from, their camp. Another 
Turkish force, crossing the stream higher up, then fell 
upon the camp, slaying the women and the sick. 
Tancred, left alone, was saved by Boemund ; but all the 
Christian host was in confusion, till Godfrey brought the 
main forces to their rescue, and in turn cut off and 
surrounded the Turks. It is said that in this battle 
they lost no less than twenty-three thousand slain, and all 
their baggage, the sumptuous tents of their leaders, and a 
great spoil. The Norman soldiers dressed themselves in 
silks and velvets, and only four thousand of their fighting 
men were lost, besides the sick and the women slain in 
camp. Kilij Arslan retreated south, wasting and burn- 
ing the country ; and the terror of the Norman fell on all, 
while news of disaster sped to Mosul and Baghdad. 

The way now led along the " Royal Road/' which 
first Augustus made from Syria to Nicea, as is attested 
by a still remaining milestone.* It led across the diffi- 
cult Sultan Dagh (" the Devil's Mountain " they called 

* See Prof. W. M. Ramsay's The Church in the Roman Empire, p. 32. 
There were two branches of the high road so named, the eastern of which 
the Crusaders followed. 



THE MARCH TO ANTIOCH. 37 

it) which looks down on Antioch in Pisidia, and on the 
lake to its west. Thence by Isaura it passes to the lower 
lands west of Tarsus, leaving Lystra and Iconium to 
the east. The highway thus escapes the desert plateau 
of Galatia, with its treeless dow r ns and salt lake, on the 
one side, and the deep valleys of the Hermus and the 
Lycus on the other. But the march was long and 
difficult, for it was now midsummer in Asia, and the 
defeated Turks had wasted the land. In Phrygia the 
army suffered from thirst, and many died of sunstroke. 
The falcons dropped dead from the falconer's perches, 
the hounds were lost, the horses fell and perished. But 
no enemy withstood them for three hundred miles from 
Dorylaeum to the gates of Syria. Iconium, the capital 
of Kiiij Arslan, they found deserted. Tarsus surren- 
dered ; and further east at Adana, Guelph, a Burgundian 
freelance, had already captured the plains round the 
Gulf of Aiyas. 

Still the advance was cautious and slow, and autumn 
was already well advanced before the army had entirely 
traversed Phrygia and Cilicia. Baldwin, the brother of 
Godfrey, followed, with his Germans a day's march after 
Tancred and the Italians, and quarrels between the two 
nations began at Tarsus, when the inhabitants preferred 
surrender to the smaller vanguard of the Sicilian prince. 
The imperious Baldwin drove him out, and occupied the 
fort, which there looked down on the foaming falls of 
the Cydnus, and the gardens of oleander, orange, and 
palm, in a land rich with corn, wine, wood, and water, 
under the lofty snow-capped peaks of the Taurus. 



38 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



Tancred marched eastward through these plains, with 
the blue Mediterranean on his right hand, to Adana 
upon the Seihun river, where a great bridge spanned the 
stream under the walls. But the jealousies of Normans 
and Lorrainers were not appeased, and a small body of 
Boemund's men, following Baldwin to Tarsus, was refused 
an entry, and cut to pieces in the night by Turks under 
the walls. A massacre of the Moslem garrison in 
Tarsus followed, and here a fleet from Boulogne joined 
the army. Advancing to Adana the Lorrainers found 
the Italians furious at the loss of the three hundred of 
their comrades shut out of Tarsus ; a battle took place 
in which the latter were worsted, and only with great dif- 
ficulty could Tancred and Baldwin make peace between 
their knights. From Adana another march brought 
Tancred to Malmistra on the Jihun river, within four days 
of Antioch, north of the Gulf of Aiyas, and here first 
Christian ambassadors from the East met the Crusaders. 
Thoros was prince of Edessa beyond the Euphrates, 
and his Armenian envoy Pancrates brought letters in 
November, asking Baldwin to occupy the town, and to 
defend it against the Turks of Mosul.* The possession 
of Edessa as a bulwark flanking the advance of Turkish 
forces from Mesopotamia, was highly advantageous to 
the prospects of the great task which the Latins had 
undertaken ; and leaving his army with Tancred, 
Baldwin set out, with only a hundred knights, to hold 
Edessa and to cover the flank of an advance on Syria. 

* Archives de F Orient Latin, I, p. 161 ; see Rohricht's Regesta Regni 
Hierosolymitani, No. 3. 



THE MARCH TO ANTIOCH. 39 

The city, famous for its ancient Syriac university, was 
.fortified with walls and strong square towers by Justi- 
nian. It stood west of the Scyrtus stream, having the 
slopes of the Tap Dagh to its west. A fortress on this 
side, upon a height scarped and surrounded with ditches, 
was dominated by two great Corinthian-capped pillars 
of victory. On north and east, and beyond the stream, 
gardens like those of Damascus belted in the city, which 
contained perhaps some thirty thousand souls, mainly 
Armenians, Jacobites, and Nestorians. The fountain of 
Callirrhoe fed the stream outside the water-gate, and 
-the waters were full of sacred fish. Such was the first 
city ruled by any Latin prince in Asia.* 

The possession of walled towns in such an age meant 
the submission of the open country round ; and the 
counts of Edessa, for forty-five years, ruled a large 
province on the southern borders of Armenia. When 
Edessa fell again before the Turks the first great 
bulwark of the kingdom of Jerusalem was broken 
down. Among the towns and castles of this country 
were places as far east as Diarbekr, and north to 
Malatiya, and west to the Amanus, The whole region, 
stretching one hundred and fifty miles north and south, 
and three hundred east and west, was larger than the 
kingdom of Jerusalem and its great vassal provinces 
together. It reached from the Armenian mountains to 
the borders of Antioch and Aleppo, and from near the 
sea almost to the Tigris, Edessa being well seated in its 

* Procopius Buildings of Justinian, II, 6 ; p. 58 Pal. Pil. Texts Society 
-.translation. Rey, Colonies Pratiques, p. 308. 



40 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

centre. The whole was divided into many fiefs. Ain 
Tab, Daluk, Ravendah, Khyrros, were in the middle of 
the province west of the Euphrates. Bir was one of the 
chief places on the lower Euphrates, and Samosata in 
the regions beyond. The _whole country was full of 
Syrian and Nestorian Christians, who cheerfully wel- 
comed a ruler not fanatically subservient to the Roman 
Church. Four eastern bishoprics were included in 
Baldwin's great fief at Edessa, Daluk, Jerablus, and 
Saruj. Its furthest towns were Amida (near Nisibis), 
Mardin, and Nisibis itself on the east near the Tigris, 
Malatiya, Besni, and Marash on the slopes of the Taurus 
to the north, Harran, and Rakkah on the Euphrates, 
to the south. Along the great river the knights of 
Lorraine held Jerablus (the site of Carchemish), Bir, 
Rum-Kalah, and Samosata, Among their fortresses in 
Syria were those which they called Turbessel (Tell 
Bashar), Tulupe (Daluk), and Ravandal (Ravandah) ; 
and at Bar Sauma on the Euphrates the Syrian Jacobite 
patriarch of Antioch was recognised as head of that 
Church. The brother of the future King of Jerusalem 
thus reaped the first harvest, in the first region reached 
after Asia Minor had been crossed ; and his power 
seems never to have been questioned by the Greeks. 
But it was also the hardest conquest to maintain, and 
first to fall again under the Moslem rule. 

Meanwhile the Christian forces advanced, and, crossing 
the Syrian gates, descended from the Amanus east of 
Antioch, and Tancred seized Alexandretta, the port 
which overlooks the dreary marshes of the Gulf of Ayas, 



THE MARCH TO ANT1OCH. 41 

from which the Amanus rises sheer near the shore 
where Issus marks the site of that renowned contest 
which won all Syria for Alexander the Great. Crossing 
the Iron Bridge he seized on Harenc (now Harim), an 
important castle between Antioch and Aleppo, and 
Robert of Flanders occupied Artesia, near the famous 
church of Simon Stylites. By these various movements 
Antioch was surrounded, cut off from the sea on the 
west, and from the Turks of Mosul and Aleppo on the 
east ; and the main body, headed by Robert of Nor- 
mandy, advanced across the mountains and sat down 
before the capital of Syria. 

The fame of these successes spread far to the east 
and south. Two policies became possible for the 
princes, and remained possible while the Latins were in 
Syria ; for although to the priest, the pilgrim, and the 
pious Latin there seemed to be no policy needful, but 
only valorous combat against every Saracen, it is clear 
that from the first the leaders were statesmen as well as 
generals, and owed their success to the prudence and 
soldierly skill which guided the religious enthusiasm of 
their army. There was the policy of aiding some of the 
Turkish Emirs against the others, and so dividing their 
enemies ; and the policy of alliance with Egypt against 
the Turks as a whole. The Vizir of Egypt, Melek el 
Afdal, tempted the leaders with offers despatched as 
soon as they had entered Syria. His envoys brought a 
friendly message* to the princes, advising them to join 
with Egypt in fighting the Turks ; but this alliance with 

* Archive*, I, p. 162 ; Regesla, No. 4. 

E 



42 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

a Moslem power, then striving to occupy Jerusalem, 
their ultimate objective, they refused. Meanwhile 
Alexius, hearing of the embassy, sent in the January of 
1098 to Egypt, hoping to interfere with any such plans.* 
On the other hand the princes wrote to Damascus 
asking Dokak, its governor, to remain neutralf ; and in 
February, Yaghi Sian, the Turkish Governor of Antioch, 
sent a letter to Kerboga, the Seljuk prince of Mosul, 
asking for help, and Kerboga in turn wrote to the 
Sultan Borkiaruk, son of Melek Shah, and to the Khalif 
of Baghdad, the head of Islam in Asia, sending arms 
taken from certain stragglers of the Christian army, and 
boasting how easily their forces might be overcome.^ 

Antioch, the famous trading city, founded by the 
heirs of Alexander as the capital of the Seleucid 
kingdom of Syria ; where first the Christians were so 
called ; where Chrysostom had preached later to eager 
congregations ; where the Romans, and the Herodians 
before them, had raised temples and streets of pillars, 
baths, and hippodromes ; where hermits had lived and 
died in the caves of its mountain ; where the pagan 
temple women had swum in the baths, and wandered in 
the groves of Daphne ; where Justinian had built mighty 
ramparts, a church of the Virgin, another of St. Michael, 
and hospitals for the sick ; where a great cathedral of 
Peter and Paul stood in the midst, and the traders of 
Amalfi had already a quarter of their own a city of 
many memories, rich with the commerce of Baghdad 

* Archives, I, p. 174; Regesta, No. 8. 
t Archives, I, p. 171 ; Regesta, No. 5. 
I Archives, I, pp. 167, 172 ; Regesta, Nos. 6, 7. 






THE MARCH TO ANTIOCH. 43 

and Mosul, had now for fourteen years been subject to 
the Turks. 

The walls of Justinian, enclosing a rude oblong south 
of the River Orontes, rose to the spurs of Mount Silpius, 
and surrounded the town and its suburbs of gardens 
four mamelons in the plain, and a citadel perched on 
the heights. A stream ran through the gardens to join 
the river, and channels from the hills brought water to 
the houses. The circuit of the walls was over five 
miles in length, and on the north a single bridge 
spanned the Orontes at the gate of the bridge. On the 
east was the gate of St. Paul ; on the west that of Saint 
George ; on the south the Iron Gate and several 
posterns leading to the mountain. The city first be- 
came visible at some two miles distance on the east, 
after the Christians crossed the river, and left behind 
them the lake, famous in later times for its eels. Three 
hundred and sixty Byzantine towers and turrets 'are 
said to have strengthened the walls. Gardens of figs 
and mulberries, jujubes and nuts, lay within them, and 
the oleander groves of Daphne were near the city on the 
west. 

The Christian army invested the town on all sides but 
the south, where barren crags rose up above the citadel. 
On the east Boemund and Tancred lay before the gate 
of St. Paul. Robert of Flanders and Robert of Nor- 
mandy pitched between the river and the Dog Gate on 
the north-east, with Stephen of Blois and Hugh of Ver- 
mandois Normans and Flemings, Bretons, and French- 
men, were with them. Raymond of Toulouse, with the 

E 2 



44 WE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

men of Languedoc and Provence, was further west at 
the Duke's Gate ; and, in the centre of the northern wall, 
Godfrey and the men of Lorraine besieged the bridge, 
and extended to the west. But near the mountain on 
the west were the Towers of the Sisters, and here, 
through the gate of St. George, the Syrian and Ar- 
menian subjects of the Turks brought in provisions. 

The Latins arrived late in the autumn, while the 
grapes were still plentiful in the vineyards ; and for a 
time the great host found provision in the valley, or 
obtained it from the neighbouring lands which they 
harried. They discovered pits of corn the native 
metamtr to feed both man and horse, and drove in 
Turkish cattle from the pastures. But the winter was 
upon them ; the Genoese fleet could not approach the 
open bay of Seleucia during the storms of January and 
February ; and the terrible necessity of wintering in the 
open, before a city, strong and well supplied with food, 
lay before the princes. It soon became impossible to 
feed so large an army, and many deserted or were 
drawn off by their leaders to other towns. An idle 
army, including such rude elements, soon threatened to 
fall to pieces, through want of discipline, and through 
licence. Even the legate Adhemar, bishop of Puy^- 
could not enforce morality upon the churchmen or the 
soldiers. The Archdeacon of Metz is said to have been 
caught by the Turks playing dice with a Syrian lady in 
the gardens ; and his head was shot into the camp from 
a catapult. A monk was publicly scourged for sinning 
with a nun ; and when such scandals arose among 



THE MARCH TO ANTIOCH. 45 

clerics the wild soldiers could not have been much 
better examples of the conduct fit for pilgrims of the 
Cross. The lands were ploughed and sown by the 
besiegers, but many months must pass before the crop 
was ripe, and meantime famine stared the Latins in the 
face. The winter rains swelled the Orontes, and 
flooded the willow marshes north-east of the walls. A 
Danish reinforcement of fifteen hundred men, led by a 
prince, accompanied by his bride, was cut to pieces at 
Philomelium. Flemish pirates came down upon the 
Syrian coast ; and the Greeks, ever anxious to assert 
their claim to Syria, seized on Latakia, south of 
Antioch, to which city Robert of Normandy was sent 
with his division. 

Meanwhile the camp-fever and scurvy ravaged the 
host, and Godfrey lay sick of a wound. Vice, drink, and 
blasphemy, became rampant ; and men ate roots, and 
dead dogs, and horses. Out of all the eighty thousand 
steeds which are said to have reached Syria, only two 
thousand were left. It is even said by a Chronicler 
(William of Tyre) that the soldiers roasted the flesh .of 
the Turks they slew. Peter the Hermit fled, and was by 
force brought back. Stephen of Blois deserted, as did 
the general of the Greek detachment, and sailing for 
Tarsus he found the Emperor Alexius coming with an 
army, to claim Antioch when the Latins should have 
taken it, and gave so little hope of their success that the 
Greek army turned again, and marched back to Byzan- 
tium. The foraging parties brought in little, and were 
driven back by the Turks, who also held the shores near 



46 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Seleucia. Thus by the end of the winter, though the 
invaders still held on, their chances of success seemed 
desperate enough. 

But the early spring brought with it a renewed hope 
and also new cause for exertion when the rumours 
spread that Kerboga and the Turks of Mesopotamia 
were marching to the west. Godfrey recovered, and 
supplies came in from Baldwin in Edessa, from the 
Armenian monasteries, and by the Genoese fleet from 
Chios Rhodes and Cyprus. The spring, however, saw 
the Turks also in motion, and Kerboga menaced Edessa, 
while the various Emirs of Aleppo, Damascus, Sheizur 
and Membej gathered twenty thousand men, and fell 
upon the Christians, aided by a sortie of the garrison 
from Antioch. Arming themselves it is said by opening 
the graves of Turkish warriors, the Latins gathered and 
repulsed these two attacks ; and Yaghi Sian, anxious to 
gain time, proposed a truce with the besiegers, during 
which the Christians were free to enter the city, and the 
Turks to visit the camps. 

This truce, however, led to unexpected results. There 
was little time to be lost, for it was now already late in 
May, and Kerboga with an army equal at least to that 
of the Latins was only seven days distant from the 
town. In such straits an offer made to Boemund by an 
Armenian renegade, son of an armourer in Antioch, was 
most unwillingly accepted by the Princes, who had hoped 
by force of arms to take the city. Firuz, the renegade, 
had charge of three towers in the strong south-west 
corner of the wall, high on the hill. During the truce he 



THE MARCH TO ANTIOCH. 



offered to admit the Christians to the city by night, and 

, though the plot was suspected, and Firuz brought before 

the Governor, his coolness turned suspicion upon others. 

On the night of the 2nd of June, 1098, the party 
headed by Boemund, Prince of Tarento, crept silently up 
to the towers, and sixty men climbed after their leader, 
up a rope ladder on to the wall. The ladder broke with 
the weight of the armed men, but another was lowered, 
and soon the towers were seized, the guards slain, and a 
postern, opened by this forlorn hope, let in the rest of the 
force. The flag of Boemund, the Norman who first set 
foot on the ramparts, waved on the walls of Antioch 
a few days only before the Turkish army came in 
sight. 

A terrible massacre followed, for the city had not 
surrendered and the citadel still held out. Ten thousand 
Moslems are said to have perished, and Yaghi Sian flying 
to the mountain was murdered by the wood-cutters, and 
his head brought in to the city. The conquerors and the 
Christian population celebrated the capture with festivals 
and Eastern dances, perhaps the first witnessed by the 
Latins ; but the garrison of the citadel stiil resisted, ana 
a huge Moslem army in turn besieged the victors, a 
gathering of twenty-eight Emirs, under Kerboga, with 
all the forces of the Turks from Mesopotamia, and levies 
from Damascus and Jerusalem.* It was during this 
concentration of the Turkish forces in the north that 
Melek el Afdal, the Vizir of Egypt, seized the Holy City, 
though Arab chronicles place the capture two years 

* Albert of Aix (iv, 10) says they numbered 200,000 men. 



48 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

earlier.* When Tutush was slain by Borkiaruk, the sons 
of Ortok in Jerusalem refused to acknowledge his sons, 
who were disputing the Syrian heritage ; and Rudhwan, 
one of these, besieged the city in 1096. Melek el Afdal 
sent an army from Egypt, which took possession of Tyre, 
and, after forty days 3 siege, Jerusalem passed into the 
hands of the Egyptian Khalifs, surrendering imme- 
diately after the great battle of Antioch in July, 1098 
A.D. The troops that came against Antioch from 
Jerusalem were thus apparently those of Ortok's sons, 
El Ghazi and Sukman ; and when the alliance of Egypt 
was rejected by the Latins, Melek el Afdal took an 
opportunity to occupy Palestine, while the Turks were 
distracted by the northern war. The two branches of 
the family of Ortok, established on the borders of 
Armenia and Assyria, after the defeat of Kerboga, 
played their part a few years later in the history of Syria ; 
but the Moslems, who awaited the Latins in the south, 
were now for the most part Egyptian Arabs and not 
Turks at all. 

The army of Kerboga appeared only three days too 
late : for three weeks they invested the city, and during 
that time occurred an event attested by Raymond 
D'Agiles, who was an eye-Vvitness of the curious incident 
of which he has left an account. Peter Bartholomew, a 
monk, claimed that St. Andrew revealed to him in a 
vision where, under the altar of St. Peter's Church, lay 
the head of the lance which wounded Christ at the 

* Abu el Feda and Kemal ed Din. William of Tyre, VII, 69, IX, 10, 
see Robinson, Bib. Res., I. p. 404 



THE MARCH TO ANTIOCH. 49 

Crucifixion. The lance head was accordingly found, as 
Godfrey's cousin Baldwin du Bourg also testified by 
letter ;* and the enthusiasm thereby roused among the 
war-worn soldiers secured the victory against the 
supreme effort of the Turkish Sultan. But the evidence 
can hardly have been thought conclusive, even by the 
Crusaders, since disputes arose soon after, only satisfied 
by the ordeal of fire, through which the monk passed, 
hardly scathed, at Area, though not long after he died. 
For the moment the relic borne by Raymond d'Agiles 
served as the banner of the Christians, and after a battle 
lasting all the day on the 28th June the Turks were 
defeated, though attacking from both sides the Christian 
army sallying from the northern bridge. Fifteen thou- 
sand camels and many horses were taken, and a mighty 
spoil, among which appear to have been copies of the 
Koran in Arabic. Not long after this defeat the garrison 
of Antioch also fell before the assault of Raymond of 
Toulouse, and thus by two sieges and two pitched 
battles in the open, the Latins, in the course of little 
more than a year, became the masters of Edessa and of 
Antioch. The victory was announced by Tancred in a 
letter dated the 2Qth of June, and in July the princes 
wrote to Alexius, demanding his fulfilment of the treaty 
which bound him to assist their cause.t 

The Latins remained four months in Antioch, organ- 
ising their new possessions with the rapidity that 
characterised the Norman genius in this age of sudden 

* Archives de T Orient Latin, I, p. 177; Rohricht, Regesta, No. 4. 
+ Archives, I, pp. 175 and 177 ; Regesta. Nos. 9 and 13. 



So THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

conquest. During this time they sent to Urban II to 
announce their victory, together with the death of 
Adhemar the legate, beseeching the Holy Father to 
come himself to Syria* ; but in his stead he sent at the 
close of the year another legate Datmbert, Archbishop 
of Pisa. 

Alexius heard with astonishment the final success 
which he had so little expected, and claimed at once as 
his own both Antioch and Latakia. The letters only 
arrived after the Crusaders had started for the south. 
The answer sent from further south, broke off for ever 
the Latin and Greek alliance. Those who had failed to 
help in time of need could not expect to reap the fruits 
of victory, and so the princes refused to surrender their 
conquests, pleading that the Emperor had failed to carry 
out the treaty, f 

The enmity between Franks and Greeks continued 
in future to be a cause of weakness to Christendom, and 
led to Greek alliances with the Turks, in the times of 
Zanghi and of Saladin. Yet Alexius profited by the 
Latin conquests, and drove the Turks, from Rhodes and 
Chios. He restored to Byzantium the cities of Ephesus, 
Smyrna, and Sardis ; and even for a time occupied 
Latakia, as well as Tarsus and Malmistra. The Sultans 
of Iconium were thus cut off from the Mediterranean, 
and the coasts between Constantinople and Antioch 
remained in the hands of Christians for more than a 
century. 

* Archives, I, p. 181 ; Regesta, No. 14. 

t Archives, I, pp. 189, 192 ; Regesta, Nos. 18 and 20. 



THE MARCH TO ANTIOCH. 51 

On the Emirs of neighbouring towns the impression 
made by success was not less important, and served yet 
more to weaken the cause of Islam. Omar of Ezzaz, 
in the new county of Edessa, wrote in September to 
Godfrey, asking his aid against Rudhwan the son of 
Tutush ruling in Aleppo, and received a favourable 
reply.* This Omar had already married a Christian 
lady, widow of a certain Fulk. Offers of alliance came 
later even from Aleppo.f 

Among the first to profit were the Genoese to whom, 
immediately after the victory, Boemund, now Prince of 
Antioch by right of first entry, promised the Church of 
St. John, a town hall or fttnduk, and thirty houses ; and 
two months later the Genoese nobles swore to acknow- 
ledge no other ruler in the city4 

The new Norman province, which soon included the 
city of Latakia on the seashore north of Tripoli, ex- 
tended over the northern Lebanon, bounded by the 
county of Edessa on the north-east, and by the stream 
near the castle of Margat on the south. Tortosa 
belonged to the County of Tripoli. The eastern limit 
was the river Orontes, dividing the Christians from the 
Sultan of Aleppo ; but at times they held places further 
east, and the castle of Harenc was the frontier fortress 
on the north-east, taken and retaken by Christians and 

* In 1115, Roger of Antioch was allied to El Ghazi, son of Ortok, and 
in 1116 and 1119 the citizens of Aleppo asked his help against Moslem 
pretenders (Rey, Colonies Franques, p. iv, note). Fiona's offer to sur- 
render this city to Godfrey was made in July, 1099 (Archives, I, p. 197 ; 
fiegesta, No. 24). 

t Archives, I, p. 183 ; Regesta, No. 15. 

I Authorities quoted in Regesta, Nos. 12, 16. 



52 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Moslems in turn. The region extended one hundred 
miles north and south, by about fifty east and west, and 
was thus much smaller than the great county of Edessa ; 
but the ridge of Lebanon was cool, well watered, 
healthy, and fertile in parts ; and two good sea-ports, 
at Seleucia and Latakia, gave easy access to Rhodes 
and Cyprus, and to the Italian homes of Boemund's 
followers. The first prize had fallen to a Prince of 
Lorraine, the second equally by right of first footing 
in the capital fell to the Prince of Tarento.* Peaceful 
relations were soon established with the Moslems on 
the East, and in 1117, Roger, Governor of Antioch, 
concluded a treaty with Yaruktash, who had rebelled 
against Rudhwan in Aleppo, which granted to the 
Christian the right to protect the yearly pilgrimage to 
Mecca through his principality unmolested, levying a 
tax on the Moslem pilgrims. 

There were many ancient Christian towns on the 
Orontes in this region, such as Apamea and El Barah ; 
and the famous monastery of Simon Stylites, east of 
Antioch. Byzantine ruins of churches and houses, over 
whose doorways verses from the Psalms arc carved in 

* Boemund was afterwards captive in Cappadocia from nof to 1103; 
he left Antioch in 1104. and died in Italy in mi. His second son, by 
Constancfi, daughter of Philip I, became Prince of Antioch in 1126 as 
Boemund II. Tancred, who ruled Antioch from HOI, allied himself with 
Rudhwan of Aleppo, defeated Javaly Secavah an officer of the Sultan 
Muhammad and El Ghazi of Mardin, at Tell Bashar, in 1107, and 
advanced to Edessa, where, aided by King Baldwin, he repulsed in nfo 
Maudud, the Sultan's brother. Tancred died near Aleppo on 12. h 
December, 1112, and Boemund II being then only a child, Antiorh was 
ruled by Roger FitzRichard, son of Tancred's sister, i'orsak, of Hama- 
dan, attacked him by the Sultan's orders, in May, 1115, unsuccessfully, 
but in 1119 El Ghazi defeated and killed him on the 27th June. King 
Baldwin I defeated El Ghazi on I4th August of the same year. 



THE MARCH TO ANTIOCH. 53 

Greek letters, still survive to our own times. On the 
north-west Tancred's conquests round Malmistra were 
included. Ezzaz appears to have been the border on 
the side of Baldwin's county of Edessa. Eleven castles 
fortified the frontiers, of which Saone, south-east of 
Latakia, was one of the strongest. El Barah, on the 
right bank of the Orontes, was taken by Raymond of 
St, Gilles on the 28th of November, 1098. Its castle 
still remains in ruins, and round it the sugar cane was 
cultivated by the Norman vassals. Apamea with its 
fishing lake, made by a dam on the Orontes, was also 
beyond the boundary river, and was the see of an arch- 
bishop of the Latin rite : at El Barah, Artesia, Latakia, 
Gabala and Valenia his suffragan bishops were established. 
The sea ports of the Gulf of Ayas included Alexandretta 
(called Port Bonnel) on the south, and Ayas itself (now 
Baya) on the north. The port of Antioch was Seleucia, 
then called Port St. Simeon, or Soudin. Latakia, or 
La Liche, as the Crusaders called it, was one of the most 
important and most picturesque of all the Syrian sea- 
side cities. It was built, like many of the old Phoenician 
harbours, on a promontory under the Lebanon, and was 
defended by two castles on a hill above the gardens. 
Its vineyards were famous, and its port among the 
safest on the coast. It was not, however, till 1 109 A.D. 
that Tancred drove the Greeks out of the town. It is 
one of the very few places in Syria where a triumphal 
arch of Roman times is still to be seen, and a long 
Greek inscription of the year 214 A.D., now destroyed, 
described the public games. 



54 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM.' 

The population of this region seems to have been 
mainly Christian when the Normans arrived, but the 
Syrians had little liking for the orthodox Greek Church, 
and cheerfully accepted their new Latin masters able to 
defend them from the savage Turk. In the organisation 
of this province, and the reduction of the frontier towns 
on the east, the latter half of the year 1098 was 
employed by the Latins, who set out in autumn from 
Antioch, but did not actually begin the march to 
Palestine itself until the January of the year which 
followed. 



. 55 



CHAPTER III. 

THE FOUNDING OF THE KINGDOM. 

IN November, 1098, Raymond of St. Gilles appeared 
before Maarrah a town on the Orontes between Aleppo 
and Hamath, and on the 2ist of December it fell after 
terrible privations had been endured within its walls. 
But the further advance of the army was impossible in 
winter, when the plains were boggy, the rivers swollen, 
and the mountains white with snow. Not until early 
spring did the main forces march from Antioch, and 
then by two routes, along the Orontes on the east, and 
by the sea coast west of Lebanon. It was already April 
when they met at Area, a day's march north of Tripoli, 
Raymond leading the van past Hamath with its giant 
water wheels, and Emesa with black basalt walls amid 
green gardens of poplar, and down the broad Eleutherus 
valley where the plains are dotted with oak trees 
between the rocky ridges, west of the long grey lake of 
Kades. The ground was gay with flowers springing 
from the basalt, with phloxes and pheasant's eyes, white 
narcissus and violet anemone, pink cyclamen and yellow 
marigold ; and the long cloud wreaths lifted only to show 
the snow, \vhich loaded the branches of the cedar forests. 



56 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

From Latakia along the shores the stony road led 
south by Gabala and Marakia, Valenia and Tortosa, 
to where the plain widens with yellow sand-dunes, 
and the Eleutherus issues from its cane brake north 
of Area. 

New forces from the north, among whom the Saxons 
under Edgar the Atheling are mentioned, swelled the 
ranks ; and, joining Raymond at Area, Godfrey and 
Tancred, Robert of Normandy and Robert of Flanders 
gathered some fifty thousand fighting men. Abu Salim, 
the governor of Sheizur on Orontes, had ordered the 
Moslems to burn and devastate the routes by which 
the Latins marched.* But such destruction was only 
possible in summer time. 

On the I5th of March, Raymond was already at Area, 
and on the tenth of April the Christians still besieged 
its castlef, while Godfrey was encamped at Gabala to 
the north. Easter passed by before the march was once 
more ordered on the 1 3th of May, and meanwhile further 
embassies were sent from Egypt by Melek el Afdalif, 
proposing terms on which the Latins might be peace- 
fully admitted into the Holy City ; but these once more 
they refused. 

Although the cities on the shore were walled and 
garrisoned, it is remarkable that none of them attempted 
to bar the way of the Latins. The bold strategy of 
marching as a flying column, flanked perhaps by the 
Genoese fleet, and never again delaying to besiege even 

* Archives, I, p. 191 ; Regesta, No. 17. 
t Archives, I, p. 191 ; Regesta, No. 19. 
Archives, I, p. 193; Reges/a, No. 21. 



THE FOUNDING OF THE KINGDOM. 57 

the larger ports, was finally successful, because the 
capital was actually taken, and because the Turks would, 
as the Latins knew, never join hands with the Egyptian 
forces. The risks incurred are clear ; for though the 
Christian army was far too strong for any single garri- 
son, yet if defeat had overtaken it in the far south, 
after a march of five hundred miles from Antioch, 
retreat past such a line of fortresses would have been 
quite impossible. It was perhaps on such final defeat 
that the Egyptians, not yet ready, counted, when they 
refused to meet the Latins in the open. 

The route led still along the coast, under the steep 
rough spurs of Lebanon, over the slippery pass of 
Shakkah, where the gorge was not as yet, perhaps, closed 
by the robber tower of later times : by Gebal, with its 
beds of papyrus ; by the bright palm gardens of Sidon, 
the sandy bay of Tyre, the white cliff at whose feet the 
blue Mediterranean laps in the grottoes, and so to the 
wide plain of Acre and over Belus and Kishon, to the 
purple ridge of Carmel. In May they entered Sharon, 
crossing the Crocodile river, and traversing the open oak 
dotted lowlands near Caesarea ; and so passed south 
to plains where, in the hot haze of the east winds, the 
sand dunes flickered in the mirage, presenting ghostly/ 
lakes and palm groves, which when reached were but 
low bushes in a waterless desert. The line of march was 
pointed out by friendly Maronites, coming down from 
their mountain villages to meet the princes. It was 
the safest and the quickest that they could have chosen ; 
but now, as they turned inland at Lydda and Ramleh,, 

F 



58 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

the stony mountains of Judaea rose two thousand feet 
above them. 

In the plains of Lydda it would seem that three divisions 
were formed, advancing from north and south and west 
to hem in the Egyptians : for, if we may believe a later 
writer,* Raymond of St. Gilles marched up into the 
mountains not far south of Shechem, and camped at 
the small village which still preserves his name at 
Sinjil. It is at least certain that while Godfrey came 
tip to the city by the road from Jaffa, by which most 
travellers now approach it, Tancred with his hundred 
knights moved further south, to occupy Bethlehem by 
the request of its Christian inhabitants. So doingTancred 
was the first to set eyes upon the goal of all their hopes 
the Holy City which they had marched two thousand 
miles to win. 

It was already June when twenty thousand Latins 
approached Jerusalem, and when Tancred gazed upon 
it from the Mount of Olives. Climbing the chalky hill 
terraced with olives, to where the ruins of the earliest of 
Christian chapels enshrined the foot-print of Christ, in 
the rock on the summit, he saw below him on the east 
the shining lake of Sodom beyond the endless marl 
peaks flickering in the noonday haze, and the long blue 
ridge of Moab beyond the snaky Jordan ; and, on the 
west beneath him, Jerusalem lay on the slopes beyond 
the Kidron ravine a grey town smaller than Antioch, 
without gardens, without a stream, with strong high 

* Fetellus. (See Memoirs of Survey of Western Palestine, Vol. II, 
p. 292.) 



THE FOUNDING OF THE KINGDOM, 59 

walls and houses capped with shapeless white-washed 
domes. The broad enclosure of the Templum Domini 
rose close to the ravine, with Arab ramparts standing on 
giant masonry of Herod's fane. The great dome of 
the chapel, built by Abd el Melek from the spoils of 
Christian churches, dominated the city and hid the 
Sacred Rock. Its outer walls were rich with glass 
mosaics, and long Arab texts proclaimed the words 
of the Prophet and the pious deeds of the Khalifs. 
The green bronze gates, perchance, were open, showing 
the dark recesses glowing with colour. The pigeons 
clustered on the dome ; the crier called to prayer from 
the minaret : the Moslems gathered round the preacher 
who encouraged men to die in war against the " People 
of the Book," painting the joys of Paradise, the houris 
stretching forth their jewelled arms, with dark eyes 
smiling on the martyrs of Islam. On the south side, 
between the cypresses, the women drew water from 
the fountain and the hidden caverns. The Church of 
Mary, built by Justinian against the southern wall, was 
also now a mosque marking the Templum Salomonis. 
Wild cries of Allah-hu-akbar ! rose from the mail- 
<:lad guards upon the ramparts, when first the glint 
of Norman spears was seen on Olivet. No stately 
churches rose as yet to overtop the mosque ; the Palace 
of the Knights of St. John was still unbuilt ; no bells 
might sound from steeples ; no Nazarene might ride in 
sight of Moslem masters. A terror stricken Christian 
population trembled in fear of coming massacre. Far 
.on the west the great square Tower of David guarded 

r 2 



60 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



the citadel, and further north the tower, named in after 
days from Tancred himself, marked the north-west 
corner of the town. The walls were such as still enclose 
the city, extending rather farther to the north, and not 
as far to the west as now. Upon the south they crossed 
the higher part 'of Sion, excluding the Church of the 
Apostles. Deep valleys girt the city on the south and east, 
burrowed with ancient caves and rock-cut monuments 
of Herod's time, and of the later Christian princes of 
Byzantium. The crosses of the pilgrims were already 
cut upon the rocks of Hinnom, and their bones lay 
mouldering in the vault of the Potter's Field. Upon the 
north a deep wide fosse was cut outside the walls, and 
only on the west, where David's Gate led to the citadel, 
could the assailants reach the ramparts from the open 
plateau. 

Meanwhile, from Lydda, Godfrey with the army 
climbed the mountains and crossed the Valley of the 
Terebinth, where men believed that David fought 
the giant ; and so at length, but half a mile away, 
the Latins saw the goal of all their hopes a long 
grey wall, a mighty tower, a few dark cypress 
trees above the rampart ; and all around grey stones, 
brown rocks, a dusty soil, thistles and thorns, a strag- 
gling olive grove to north, and terraces of figs 
upon the south a barren land of naked rocks, water- 
le'ss and glaring under a cloudless sky. Such was 
the Sacred City when they first set eyes upon it from 
the west. 

Bending their foreheads in the sacred dust, the kneeling 



THE FOUNDING OF THE KINGDOM. 61 

host lifted up its voice and wept. This, then, was in very 
deed the city of their dreams, the reality so little like 
that which they had fancied at home. The funnel-like 
cupola of the small church within the town, built over 
the Holy Tomb, was hidden by the towers : only the 
fortress wall was seen. Was this Jerusalem, the Holy 
City of Melchisadek and Jacob, the royal capital of 
David and Solomon, the place where Christ had suffered 
and died and risen again, the home of Saints and 
Martyrs, the earthly symbol of Jerusalem on high ? The 
memory of many woes endured, of many perils past, 
came back into their hearts. Memories of the grim 
solitude of Dorylseum, strewn with bones : of the dark 
days of famine before Antioch : of cruel Turkish bows 
and yet more cruel deserts : of wives and children 
dropping by the way ; and sons and fathers laid in 
roadside graves: of three years that had passed since 
last they saw the vineyards and the woods of Burgundy, 
the peaceful fields of some Italian home. All this 
they had endured, and had survived to reach their 
goal : yet still a mighty struggle lay before them 
ere the Sepulchre could be freed. Bishop and monk, 
prince and peasant, knelt together in the dust, and wept 
to see the long-desired city. 

And yet, perchance, as many of us now think, the 
material object of their faith and effort was a delusion : 
and the site of Calvary and the Tomb of Christ both 
unknown. The church of Constantine was perhaps 
reared, not on the Golgotha where Jesus suffered : the 
narrow rock-cut grave, within the chapel of the Resur- 



62 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

rection, was not a sepulchre " nigh unto the city," For 
eight long centuries all the Christian world had then 
accepted a site fixed by emperor and patriarch for 
reasons which no early writer has recorded. Reading 
the letters of Constantine, and history of Eusebius, we 
now perceive that in Helena's days all memory of the 
true sites had confessedly long been lost. Sad as it. 
seems that so much faith and love should be lavished on 
an error, it is not less true that Godfrey, marshalling his 
host against the northern wall, may often have pressed 
with his mailed feet the Rock of Calvary, yet never knew 
the spot on which he stood. The Sepulchre was " nigh 
unto the city," not in its midst. The hill of crucifixion 
was "without the gate." Even pilgrims of the age 
of Godfrey found it difficult to understand how ancient 
Jerusalem a city large and populous could have been 
built so as to leave the sacred sites beyond its circuit ; 
and they gave explanations to the devout hard to 
reconcile with what we now know of the Herodian walls. 
It may be therefore that while men were striving blindly, 
though faithfully, for a great idea, the rock of Golgotha 
stood as of old, unknown like the new tomb of Joseph 
in the garden ; not desecrated by scenes of human 
hatred and wrath; and still even now, so long after 
Godfrey's age, only "a green hill far away beside a city 
wall," 

The siege of Jerusalem lasted for forty days. The 
city was the first taken by force from Islam : for Nicea 
surrendered, and Antioch fell by treachery. The Egyp- 
tian garrison had not the same fierce obstinacy of 



THE FOUNDING OF THE KINGDOM. 63 



resistance in its heart which made the Turk, from the 
first days of history, master of Syria ; but the inhos- 
pitable mountains of Judaea opposed to the Franks 
difficulties unknown in the well-watered and well-wooded 
regions of the North. Hunger and thirst, and want of 
wood to build siege towers, were more formidable to 
the army than any Egyptian enemy. Jerusalem was 
always hard to reach, because from of old the mountains 
stood round a natural citadel. Neither as a trading city, 
nor as a stronghold, was its possession profitable. Only 
as a centre of the faith was it dear to Christians, to Jews, 
and to Moslems alike. A century later, when faith de- 
cayed, men still fought hard-for trading cities and fertile 
seaside plains in Palestine ; but Jerusalem no longer 
was desired, save by ruined clerics, and by pious 
pilgrims. 

The first mad effort of Tancred, to win the city with 
a single ladder, failed ; and by the middle of June a 
regular siege was begun. The camp of Godfrey was on 
the north-east, above the valley of Kidron ; and next to 
the Lorrainers came the men of Flanders further west, 
and the men of Normandy, camping against the Gate of 
Damascus or of St. Stephen as it then was called. A 
fosse protected the northern wall on this side, and the 
rampart stood on a scarp; which was highest east of the 
gate. Tancred with the Italians lay before the north- 
west tower, and Raymond of Toulouse, with the men 
of southern France, was on the west, over against the 
Tower of David ; while, later on, a portion of his force 
was camped on Sion, against the southern wall. By 



64 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



this arrangement the Lorrainers were divided from the 
Italians, whom they had fought at Tarsus, by the two 
camps of Flemings and of Normans. 

Within the city there was water, stored in tanks and 
rocky caverns. Outside, the wells were blocked, and 
some declared them poisoned. The little cave of Gihon, 
in the Kidron ravine, gave only a small supply, which 
flowed at times through the hill tunnel to Siloam. It 
was difficult of access, and quite unfit to supply a force 
of twenty thousand men. The sufferings of the army 
from thirst were terrible. On the south the nearest 
springs were near Bittir, three miles away; and foraging 
parties, sent as far as Bethlehem and Solomon's pools, 
were at times cut off by the enemy : so that water was 
sold at ruinous prices ; and food was also scarce for such 
an army. On the north no water could be found nearer 
than Bireh and Gibeon, six miles off; and here also, in 
the summer, the springs and wells were soon exhausted. 
Moreover, there was no wood around the city to build 
the rolling towers needful for the assault. It was 
fetched from the copses of Mount Joie and Gibeon ; but 
the trees were small, and beams from ruins, and timbers 
found in a cave, with perhaps olive and fig trees from 
orchards, were the best materials that the Franks could 
get. The cattle died in numbers, from hunger and 
thirst ; and the stench of putrid corpses hung over the 
Christian camps, where fever and scurvy, hunger and 
thirst, wrought havoc for a month. Meanwhile, however, 
the Genoese fleet, sailing from the north, reached Jaffa, 
and brought skilled workmen to construct the towers. 



THE FOUNDING OF THE KINGDOM. 65 



The dead oxen were flayed, and their hides covered 
the timber. Three tall towers on rollers, with upper 
storeys for the bowmen, and drawbridges to lower on 
the ramparts, were slowly built ; and by the middle of 
July all was ready for the final effort. 

The Festival of the Visitation (the I2th of July) was 
celebrated during this time ; and the army marched 
in long procession, headed by priests and banners, to 
the chapel on Olivet, where Peter the Hermit, and 
Arnold, the ambitious chaplain of Robert of Nor- 
mandy, preached to the pilgrims. Below them, in the 
Temple courts, the Moslems, too, were praying in the 
mosques ; and few were the Nazarenes then remaining 
in the city, for the patriarch had fled to Cyprus, and 
the Christians had been driven out before the siege 
closed in. 

On Thursday, the I4th of July, 1099, the towers were 
rolled against the wall, the fosse was filled with stones 
and timbers and earth, the grey goose shafts flew from 
the upper platforms, the mangonels showered stones, 
and the rams beat against the ramparts. But the defence 
was stout. The desperate Egyptians, whose messengers 
speeding to Egypt to summon help had fallen into the 
hands of the Latins, fought for their lives, throwing 
the dreadful petroleum flames of the Greek fire upon 
the wooden castles, pouring hot oil and boiling water 
on the men-at-arms who worked the rams and man- 
gonels, answering arrow for arrow and slingstone for 
slingstone. The clumsy towers rocked and creaked, 
dragged on by men and beasts : the wheels and rollers 



66 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

broke with the strain, under the heavy weight of the 
mailed knights, who held the chains of the bridges 
ready to lower. The tower of Godfrey on the east, 
and that of Tancred on the west, stuck fast : the third 
was burned or broken down, and night came on leaving 
the city still untaken. 

During this night, while (as the chronicler reports) 
witches were seen weaving spells upon the ramparts, 
and while the men about to die were confessing their 
sins, and early at dawn receiving the sacrament of the 
altar from their priests, Godfrey was hard at work 
retrieving the failure. His tower was taken down, and 
moved to where, further west, near the postern called 
afterwards " Herod's Gate," the ditch was shallow, and 
a storming party might hope to open a gate on gaining 
the wall. Here the tower was again erected, and on 
Friday, the I5th the Moslem day of rest the battle 
raged once more : the walls tottered under the blows of 
the ram : and the hides protected the tower, so that the 
Greek fire failed to burn it. At three in the afternoon 
the hour, as men remembered on which the Saviour 
died the heavy drawbridge fell at length upon the 
battlement, and Godfrey, first of all the Latins, stood 
fighting on the wall, and won for Germany the crowning 
victory of Christendom. 

The end came swiftly. The gate was opened, the 
breach was scaled, and the fierce Latins swarmed along 
the narrow streets. The Moslems fled to the mosque, 
where Tancred vainly promised them their lives. The 
princes could no longer hold their savage followers back. 



THE FOUNDING OF THE KINGDOM. 67 

Without respect for age or sex, they slew and spared not. 
Their arrows pierced the miserable women crowded on 
the roofs, and many flying to the caverns perished in the 
water. The feet of the palfreys trod deep in blood, as 
the knights rode in upon the pavement of the Temple. 
For seven days riot and carnage continued, and only 
those who fled to David's Tower were saved by Raymond, 
and sent with wives and children and baggage to seek 
a refuge in Ascalon. Men forgot their vows, forgot 
the Sepulchre and Calvary, hastening to gather spoil, 
revelling and exulting, and claiming for their own the 
empty houses which they seized. Even priests were not 
slow to ask their share. Arnold, as Latin Patriarch, 
claimed the treasures of the Mosque, which Tancred 
and Godfrey had shared between them. Daimbert, the 
Legate, declared the ruler of Jerusalem to be the vassal 
of the Pope. 

But meanwhile Godfrey, the hero of that day, with 
only three attendants, knelt before the Holy Tomb, in 
that same chapel where Peter the Hermit had prayed, 
and thither he called the men of Lorraine to fulfil their 
vows. Who so great among them all as Godfrey the 
blameless knight, the humble Christian, who refused to 
wear a crown in the city where his Master suffered for 
the sins of all ? Tall, strong, red bearded and comely, 
in the pride of his manhood a hero who had fought a 
savage bear in Phrygia, and had cleft a Turk in twain at 
Antioch, and who first had sprung upon the wall a day 
before. Yet humble, and courteous to the meanest, pure 
of life, and selfless as he was strong. To all alike, during 



68 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

that long and trying war, he had been the wise coun- 
sellor, the true friend, the loyal comrade. No ugly tales 
of secret orgies, of sin, or licence, were recorded against 
the perfect knight, the true soldier of the Cross, the 
wisest of the princes. His servants only could relate 
that sometimes, lingering in the churches, he would 
forget the time for food. No province yet had come 
to him, although his younger brother ruled in Edessa, 
and Boemund in Antioch. No politic scheming for 
self advancement, no treachery to any comrade, no 
cruelty to any foe, had stained his name. On whom 
if not on Godfrey could the choice now fall ? 
Who else could hold so safely the kingdom won ? 
Who had as sure a right as he who first entered the 
city? On whom could priest or bishop look with 
greater favour, and in whom could subjects better trust ? 
Robert of Normandy some men said ; but Robert, the 
man who fought and nearly slew his own father in 
rebellion, was looking to the crown of England his by 
right as eldest born. Tancred others said ; but Tancred 
had failed where Godfrey had succeeded, and such a 
choice was clearly unjust. Raymond of Toulouse was 
old and selfish, and men hated him and desired a leader 
in the flower of his age. He was, moreover, well con- 
tented with the fairer County of Tripoli the cool range 
of Lebanon, its rich red valleys, and the port where men 
already gathered wealth. The ruling of more barren 
lands in the Judean mountains, with strong Egyptian 
foes upon the south, and Turkish enemies in Damascus, 
and wild Arabs over Jordan, was no such enviable task 



THE FOUNDING OF THE KINGDOM. 69 

for any man. Robert of Flanders spoke as a true 
.knight before the Council, asking his peers to lay aside 
ambition and envy, and to choose from among them- 
selves the best and strongest, the wisest and most just. 
His loyal words pointed to Godfrey only, and all men 
rejoiced when the choice was made, and the honour fell 
to him whose due it was. They led him in solemn 
procession to the Sepulchre, with psalms and hymns ; 
but here he put away the crown, because a crown of 
thorns alone had pressed the brows of Christ ; and known 
henceforth only as duke and vassal of the Church, he 
took upon his shoulders the weight of anxious rule. 

The vows of all were now fulfilled, the ships were 
ready at Jaffa to take them home, the provinces had 
all been given away to Baldwin and Boemund, Ray- 
mond and Godfrey. Tancred was named Prince of 
Galilee a region yet unconquered : the rest went 
home because no further conquests were expected ; 
and only one hundred knights threw in their lot with 
Godfrey, whose army never numbered more than twenty 
thousand men. 

Much still remained to be done before success was 
secure. The northern princes held the Turks in check, but 
news had sped to Egypt, where the Khalif, El Mustali, was 
already gathering a mighty army. The emirs of Nablus 
had submitted, but Galilee was still unconquered. The 
seaside garrisons held out for Egypt, and Ascalon was 
to be for many years a thorn in the side of the kings of 
Jerusalem. Not a moment must be lost in marching 
south to meet the Khalif, and even the organisation of 



70 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM, 

the lands around Jerusalem was put aside, until another 
battle had been fought. 

Scarce was the choice of Godfrey made when on 
the nth August the army moved into the plains of 
Philistia, to meet the Egyptian host. The broad red 
lands had then been reaped if, indeed, peasants had 
dared to sow the corn that year. Water was scarce in the 
pools of the " River of Reuben," which runs from the 
mountain vale of Sorek. The dry summer dust was 
raised by herds of grazing cattle, and swirled in long 
high columns over the plain. The heat was at its 
greatest, the sky a merciless blue or leaden grey for days, 
until the sea breeze swept again towards the hills ; and 
before the Latins were the walls of Ascalon, towering 
above the sand dunes, and the sails of an Egyptian fleet 
anchored off its reefs. There were only three hundred 
knights beside Duke Godfrey, but the spirit of the army 
was raised by victories over sterner foes than half-bred 
Arabs and sulky Nubians ; and trusted leaders 
Raymond, Tancred, and both the Roberts led the 
forces on the centre and wings. The Nubians charged 
with iron flails, and strove to maim the Norman 
horses ; but the dust from the herds was taken for 
that of new troops hurrying to the battle, and panic 
seized the Moslems when the dreaded Latins fell upon 
them. They fled to Ascalon, or hastily embarked for 
Egypt, and by this final victory the kingdom was 
secured for nearly ninety years to come. Melek el 
Afdal fled into the fortress, with but two thousand 
men, many of whom were trampled in the gate. 



THE FOUNDING OF THE KINGDOM. 71 

With songs of victory the Christians again entered 
Jerusalem, and Daimbert wrote to Urban II announcing 
yet another triumph.* 

Godfrey had already sent to Boemund in the north, 
announcing his election ; and to Europe asking for 
further helpf ; and in August Tancred reported this 
victory.:}: New legions soon set out, from Lombardy and 
Germany, with Conrad of Hohenstauffen and Wolf of 
Bavaria. The bishop of Milan brought the arm of St. 
Ambrose, and the whole army, including monks and 
women, numbered at least one hundred thousand souls. 
Their aim was not Jerusalem, but further conquests 
extending to Baghdad; and in the year Hoi they 
reached Cappadocia, only to perish near Angora, lured 
by the Turks into an ambush. Another fifteen thousand 
Latins, under the Counts of Nevers and Bourges, perished 
near Erekli on the way to Tarsus ; and near the same town 
yet a third division, led by William of Poitou, was also 
defeated. The arm of St. Ambrose was lost, and Ray- 
mond of Toulouse, who had undertaken to lead the first 
of these three armies from Angora, fled to Sinope. The 
miserable women who accompanied the host were slain, 
or spared, when young and beautiful, for lifelong misery 
in Turkish harims. All these chiefs died with their 
followers excepting Raymond, and the road by land to 
Syria was once more made impassable by Turkish 
victories. 



* Archives, I, p. 211 ; Regesta, No. 29. 

t Archives, I, pp. 197, 199, 205 ; Regesta, Nos. 25, 26, 27. 

% Archives, \, p. 200 ; Regesta, No. 28. 



72 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Meanwhile, in winter time Duke Godfrey in Jerusalem 
was organising fiefs, and making laws and alliances, and 
giving grants to churches and to trading cities. The 
canons of the Holy Sepulchre were the first to gain 
villages and fields, orchards and vineyards, north of the 
city. The earliest deed in the Cartulary belongs to the 
one year of Godfrey's rule, when twenty villages were 
granted to the prior. They still retain their names, 
lying on the mountains* northwards, as far as'Bireh 
and Ain Sinia then known as Val-de-curs. In the same 
year the Doge of Venice set out with a fleet, to open up 
a new and profitable trade with all the coast, and to win 
privileges for his city, by aiding to conquer Caesarea and 
Arsuf, Haifa, Tyre, and Ascalon. From Rhodes came 
letters in November, 1099, announcing the approach of 
these important allies ; and in the June that followed 
Godfrey made a treaty with them. If, from the 24th June 
until the 1 5th August, the Venetian fleet would aid his 
army, he promised to the Doge a third part of every city 
taken, and a church and market in every town, and half 
the spoil, and safety for the crew of any ship wrecked 
on the coast; and this alliance was ratified on the i8th 
of July, a year after the conquest of Jerusalem, and yet 
again by later kings.f 

During the winter laws for the new kingdom, called 
" Letters of the Holy Sepulchre," were made the 
nucleus of that famous code known later as the Assizes 
of Jerusalem ; and in the spring, Arsuf, the little town 

* See Memoirs of Survey of Western Palestine, Vol. Ill, p. II. 
t See authorities in the Regesta, Nos. 30 and 31. 



THE FOUNDING OF THE KINGDOM. 73 

in Sharon, upon the cliffs north of Jaffa, was summoned 
to give tribute ; but the Moslems closed the gates, 
and bound Gerard d'Avesnes to a high cross upon the 
ramparts, threatening their prisoner's death if Godfrey 
stormed the walls. The prisoner boldly called to the 
assailants not to regard his fate ; but Godfrey raised 
the siege, and Gerard was released and came to Jeru- 
salem, to become a little later the seigneur of St. 
Abraham, as Hebron was then called. Treaties were 
made by Godfrey with Acre and Ascalon, Damascus, 
Caesarea, and Aleppo ; and in the spring the army went 
to help Tancred in Galilee, clearing the country up to 
the borders of Banias. The siege of Ascalon had failed, 
because Raymond had quarrelled with Godfrey as to the 
spoils of a city yet untaken ; and though new hosts of 
pilgrims came from Antioch and Edessa, at Christmas, 
the army of Godfrey was as yet not strong enough to 
subdue the cities on the shores. 

It was perhaps in the Huleh marshes, on his way to 
Banias, that Godfrey caught the fever which caused his 
early death. He was returning by the plains to Jaffa, 
and meditating the reduction of Haifa the natural 
port of Galilee when he was stricken down. They 
carried him to Jaffa, where he died on the i8th July, 
noo A.D., being then in the strength of manhood, little 
more than forty years of age. The long privations and 
labours in the field shortened his life, and the new 
kingdom met an unexpected blow, in this loss of 
its first ruler the wisest and best of all the Latin 
princes. 



74 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

They bore his body to Jerusalem, and buried him 
under Calvary. Even to our own times are shown the 
spurs and the long Norman sword, said to belong to 
this most perfect knight of Christendom ; and till the 
savage Kharezmians wrecked his sepulchre, it bore this 
modest epitaph as given by Quaresmius : 

Hie jacet inclitus Dux Godefridus 

De Bullon, qui totam istam terram 

Aquisivit cultui Christiano 

Cujus anima regnet cum Christo. Amen. 






75 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 

A READER who relied s61ely on the contemporary 
chronicles, from which the main thread of this account 
is derived, might easily suppose that the history of the 
Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was one of endless war, 
and of struggles hopeless from the first. The chroniclers 
seem to have thought that little was important beyond 
a record of battles won and lost, and of the marriages 
and deaths of kings. We might easily overlook the 
fact that gaps of several years occur in their annals, 
during which the kingdom is without a history, and the 
years so passed were sometimes full of other incidents. 
We fortunately, however, possess another class of 
evidence, in hundreds of documents which relate to 
grants and treaties, affecting the sale and purchase of 
land, the gifts to the Church and to the fighting Orders, 
the arrangements made by princes with the trading 
cities of France and Italy, with many other details 
speaking of peace and growing wealth. We have, 
moreover, testimony in the ruined churches, castles, and 
halls of Palestine which are among its proudest monu- 
ments, and nearly all of which were built in the first 

G 2 



76 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM.- 

fifty years of Latin rule. For eighty-seven years no 
enemy besieged Jerusalem, and for three-quarters of 
a century with exception of unimportant raids the 
battles of the Christians were fought upon the frontiers 
of the kingdom, which was ever spreading and becoming 
stronger. As long as Islam was divided into hostile 
camps the Franks were able to hold their conquests 
safely. 

Our present subject is rather that of the colonisation 
of Palestine under the feudal system than the history 
of Crusades, many of which failed, or had only a 
transient influence. During the period of the first five 
reigns in Palestine the state of Europe was far less 
peaceful than that of the new kingdom in the East. In 
England Stephen fought against a league of barons, 
and all the land was desolated by the war against 
Matilda. The castles were not dismantled till 1153 A.D., 
and not till two years later was the north of England 
recovered from the Scots. The tranquillising of the 
kingdom, when Ireland was occupied and Scotland 
subjected, was not effected by Henry II till 1173, when 
the King of Britain also ruled a third of France. In 
France Louis VI was equally hindered by the power 
of barons, and the country was full of robber castles. 
The freedom granted to various towns, at a time when 
the same policy was followed in Palestine, strengthened 
the French king against his vassals ; but the dispute 
with Rome, and the wars against the Albigenses, 
weakened the kingdom ; while in England the power 
and pretensions of the Pope left the king almost without 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 77 

subjects. In Germany and Italy the Guelphs who 
aided the cause of the Papacy were struggling with 
the Ghibelines, until, in the middle of the century, 
Alexander III put his foot upon the neck of Bar- 
barossa. From such struggles the kingdoms of the 
West emerged at length ; but during this stormy time 
the kings of Jerusalem, and the princes of Antioch and 
Edessa, governed a willing people. The fame of their 
justice attracted even Moslems, and even a Muham- 
madan writer admits that the peasantry preferred the 
Christian rule to that of Turkish or Egyptian tyrants.* 

The kingdom was divided, into fiefs ruled by counts 
and seigneurs. The feudal system created great con- 
federacies of princes, owning a single head, and allied 
for offence and defence under his direction. Such great 
vassals were the Count of Edessa, the Prince of Antioch, 
and the Count of Tripoli, to the King of Jerusalem. 
The latter province included Gebal, and the Mountain of 
the Assassins ; and on the south the smaller seigneurie 
of Beirut marched with Tripoli at the Adonis river, 
and extended east on Lebanon. The fief of Sidon was 
bounded by the Damur river on the north, and by the 
Kasimiyeh on the south, including all the southern 
Lebanon. The seigneurs of Tyre held all the low hills 
east of that city, and on the south their border was the 
ridge known as the Ladder of Tyre. From thence to 
Carmel came the royal lands of Acre, reaching inland to 
the higher mountains. The seigneur of Toron held a 
long and narrow fief upon the watershed of Upper 

* Ibn Jobeir in 1185 A.D., quoted by Rey, Colonies Franques t p. 96. 



78 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Galilee ; and east of this the seigneurs of Maron held 
the mountains and the upper Jordan valley. The fief 
of Montfort was wedged between Toron and Acre, and 
bounded on the south by that of St. George. All Lower 
Galilee, and the hills of Safed, belonged to Tancred as 
Prince of Galilee ; and on Carmel were the two small 
fiefs of Haifa and of Caymont the latter to the east. 
The mountains, from the plain of Esdraelon to near 
Sinjil, were ruled by the seigneur of Nablus or Shechem ; 
and to his west the seigneur of Caesarea held the 
plains of Sharon, from Carmel to the river Rochetaillie. 
The small fief of Arsur (or Arsuf) divided Caesarea from 
the famous County of Jaffa and Ascalon, including 
Gaza ; and here the small fief of Di.ru m marked the 
limits of the Kingdom. The hi!!?, of Jerusalem, from 
Sinjil to Tekoa, were the royal domains extending 
to the Jordan, and further south the seigneur of St. 
Abraham owned all the Hebron hills to Beersheba. 
Beyond Jordan all Moab and Gilead belonged, in the 
best days of the Latin rule, to the seigneur of Kerak ; 
and the fief was known as Oultre Jourdan. Bashan was 
never conquered, and belonged to the Sultan of Damas- 
cus ; but all the Jaulan district, which from its black 
volcanic soil was known as Soethe or the " black land," 
formed another fief of the princes of Galilee, reaching 
from the Yermuk stream to Banias the frontier fortress 
at the springs of Jordan. Such was already the kingdom 
soon after Godfrey's death, and such it remained until 
the fatal battle of Hattin in 1 187. One by one the shore 
towns were taken, and even Ascalon was finally subdued. 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 79 

The population, girded in by chains of mighty castles, 
east of Jordan or west of the Orontes, enjoyed a time of 
peace and of prosperity greater than that of European 
lands ; and even a century later the western half of the 
kingdom still remained a Christian state. The import- 
ance of these two centuries, not only for the history of 
the East, but also because of eastern influence upon 
the civilisation of Europe, can hardly be overstated ; 
and nothing is more misleading than to represent the 
story of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem as one 
long episode of war and desolation. For the moment 
we return to consider the main political events of sixty 
years of success following the conquest, but later we 
shall have occasion to enquire into the daily life of the 
Franks, and of their Oriental subjects. 

Immediately after Godfrey's death Daimbert, the Latin 
Patriarch of Jerusalem, sent the news to Boemund in 
Antioch, complaining of oppression of the churches by 
Gamier de Grey,* who seized the Tower of David and 
other places, claiming to have received them from the 
duke. Boemund, with Baldwin, Godfrey's brother, was 
faraway in Armenia, besieging Malatiya; but on receiving 
the news, Baldwin gave over his County of Edessa to his 
cousin Baldwin du Bourg, and marched on Jerusalem. 
He had a force of four hundred knights and one thousand 
men, and was attacked crossing the Dog River north of 
Beirut, but drove off the enemy and reached Jerusalem in 
safety. He was crowned on Christmas Day at Bethlehem 
the first Latin king being, like his brother, unwilling 
* Regesta, No. 32. 



8o THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

to receive the diadem in the Holy City ; and in his 
proclamation to his people* promising justice and peace, 
he says that, like Godfrey, he submitted to be a vassal of 
the Church or Patriarch of Jerusalem, and received the 
keys from the hands of the latter, and promised to the 
Church the spoils of Ascalon should the city be given 
into his hands. The expedition which he undertook for 
that purpose was, however, unsuccessful, for the city was 
too strong as yet to be taken. Tancred appears at first 
to have opposed the new election, and difficulties arose 
as to the rights to the town of Haifa (not yet subdued) ; 
but in the same year we find Tancred, as Prince of 
Galilee, granting to the abbey of Mount Tabor lands 
lying in the plateaux north and south of that isolated 
hill, and even the village of Susieh beyond Jordan, 
though still unconquered,f which agreement was made 
with Baldwin's consent. 

When Easter time approached the Holy Fire was 
awaited as usual, by Greeks and Latins alike. This 
rite, which has survived to our own days, was already 
ancient. As early as Charlemagne's time it is men- 
tioned as a miracle occurring on Easter eve.J The 
Russian Abbot Daniel, who visited Jerusalem in the 
reign of Baldwin I, describes fully what was then the 
practice. The church was cleansed on Good Friday, 

* Regesta, No. 34. 

t Regesta, No. 36. Tancred was administering Antioch in March, lioi, 
Boemund having been taken captive by Muhammad Gumishtakin in 
Cappadocia. Galilee was administered meanwhile by Hugh of Falkenberg, 
Lord of Tiberias, who was killed in' 1107 near Banias, and in 1108 by 
Gervase, his successor. 

J Bernard the Wise, 867 A.D., Bohn's Early Travels in Palestine, p. 27. 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 81 



the lamps put out and filled with fresh oil, and every 
candle in every church of Jerusalem was extinguished. 
Daniel presented himself before the king, who called 
him kindly, saying, "What dost thou need Russian 
abbot ? " being, as the pilgrim says, " a man of great 
kindness and humility, and not given to pride." Daniel 
then asked leave to place a lamp beside the rest in the 
name of his Russian country, and this he was permitted 
to hang at the foot of the tomb one of the chief places 
of honour in the church. On Easter eve he found the 
church enclosure full of a crowd which overflowed into 
the outer court, some of the pilgrims coming from 
Egypt and from Antioch. ' "The crush was terrible, and 
the turmoil such that many faint in the dense mass of 
people who stand with unlighted tapers in hand waiting 
for the opening of the church doors. The priests alone 
are inside the church, and priests and crowd alike await 
the coming of the prince and his siiite: then the doors 
being opened the people rush in, pushing and jostling 
each other, and fill the church and the galleries." " All 
the people within and without the church cry ceaselessly 
Kyrie eleison ! and this cry is so loud that the whole 
building rings and shakes with it. The faithful shed 
torrents of tears. . . . Prince Baldwin himself looks 
contrite and greatly humbled."* The prince \vas seated, 
near the high altar east of the Sepulchre, on a raised 
seat. The abbot of St. Saba stood near the tomb, and 
both Greek and Latin services were performed together. 
A later writer says that the Fire sometimes appeared in 

* English translation, pp. 74, 75. 



82 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

the Templum Domini, sometimes in the Hospital of St. 
John, and not always in the Sepulchre.* On the present 
occasion it was delayed for no less than three days' 
time ; and according to Daniel lighted only three of the 
Greek lamps. The church was open above, and a fine 
rain fell on the close-packed crowd. At length they 
began to chant the song of deliverance 

" I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously ; 
The horse and his rider hath lie thrown into the sea," 

and then, according to our pilgrim, " a small cloud 
coming suddenly from the east rested above the open 
dome of the church. ... It was at this moment 
that the Holy Light suddenly illuminated the Holy 
Sepulchre, shining with an awful and splendid bright- 
ness. The bishop and four deacons then opened the 
doors of the Tomb, and entered with the taper of Prince 
Baldwin, who . . . resumed his place holding with 
great joy the taper in his hands. We lighted out- 
tapers from that of the Prince, and so passed the flame 
to all in the church." The joy bells were then rung and 
masses said, and the fire was carried to the Temple ami 
to other churches. 

Such fire feasts in springtime were not peculiar to 
Jerusalem. It was believed that at Sinai a hea\enly fire 
flew round the mountain every Sabbath, sometimes 
descending with terrible noise, but injuring iu>iu.t 
Neither was the lesti\.il pmely c 'hi i--t tan, but a common 
rite of aneient paganism. In our o\\ u time-, tlu- 1 atins 

* Thttoiorithi VIII, writing in 117^ A.M., p. 15, Kn^lish u.m>l.uum. 
t /'V/#////.f, 1130 A. 1)., p. 10, Knp.h-.li n.in-.l.Uion. 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 83 



declare the Holy Fire to be an imposture, and the rite 
is peculiar to the Eastern churches. 

In this same spring the Genoese fleet also visited 
Jaffa, and Baldwin made a treaty with them, which was 
written in letters of gold and preserved in the Holy 
Sepulchre church. It was confirmed again three years 
later, and renewed by later kings* and princes. Bald- 
win I gave to the Genoese church of St. Laurence a 
square in Jerusalem, and a street in Jaffa, with a third 
part of Caesarea, Arsuf, and Acre when those cities 
should be taken. These privileges were partly for help 
already given in winning Jerusalem and Antioch, and 
partly for later help in sieges at Laodicea and Tortosa, 
at Caesarea, Arsuf, and other places. The Genoese in 
turn promised faithful aid to the king in war. With 
the assistance of this fleet in noi A.D. Arsuf was taken, 
and Csesarea after a siege of fourteen days. The first 
capitulated, but in the latter case a terrible massacre of 
Moslems followed ; and here the Genoese found a green 
dish which they carried home and called the " Holy 
Grail." It was supposed to be that mystical vessel 
wherein the " Last Supper " had been served, famous in 
our own legends of Arthur's knights. One relic of the 
same name had been taken to Constantinople by the 
Greek patriarch in the seventh century when flying 
from Chosroes of Persia, but that was of silver. 

English and German fighting men now arrived to 
reinforce the army, and fought in the forest near Arsuf; 

* Regesta, Nos. 43, 45, 46. Renewed by Amaury, No. 438, and by 
Conrad of Tyre, No. 704. 



84 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



but at the same time a sudden raid from Ascalon 
nearly led to the capture of the king at Ramleh, which 
town the Moslems took. It is said he owed his safety 
to the gratitude of a Moslem, whose wife this gentle 
knight had succoured in distress. Escaping to Arsuf 
he gathered his forces, and retook Ramleh, on the /th 
of September, 1 101, after which the rest of the year was 
passed in peace. 

One of the most interesting letters of this reign 
belongs to the year 1102,* when Anselm, the famous 
Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote to Baldwin I, ad- 
monishing him to rule wisely, as an example to other 
Christian princes, and so that having reigned in Jeru- 
salem on this earth, he might for ever reign in Jerusalem 
above. The admonitions of the Church, bestowed upon 
this just and courteous king, should, however, have 
rather been directed to the Patriarch Daimbert, whose 
greed and luxury scandalised the pious, and angered 
Baldwin, who himself had hardly money to pay his 
knights ; or else to Arnold who, disappointed at not 
being confirmed in the assumed rank of Patriarch, was 
intriguing against Daimbert vainly. Five years later, 
in 1107 A.D., Pope Paschal II wrote to Baldwinf : for 
Daimbert, openly accused of peculation, had fled to 
Antioch, and a pious but ignorant monk named 
Ebremar was placed in his stead. The Pope called a 
Council at "Jerusalem, which deposed Ebremar and 
consoled him with the archbishopric of Tyre ; but 

* Xfgesta, No. 37. 

t Xegesta, Nos. 49, 50 ; Will. Tyre, XI, 4. 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 85 

Daimbert, who had gone to Rome, did not recover his 
dignity, for he died at Messina on his way to the East, 
and so for a few years Arnold, whom the chronicler 
calls " the first-born of Satan," obtained the See of 
Jerusalem which he had coveted so long. 

After five years, in which little fighting occurred in 
Palestine, the ranks of the first Crusaders began to be 
thinned by deatfr In 1104 Boemund, Tancred, and 
Baldwin du Bourg were besieging Harran, on the south 
border of the trans-Euphratic Christian County of 
Edessa. The Turks of Mosul came against them, and 
taking captive Baldwin du Bourg and Count Jocelyn of 
Courtenay,* spread over the country threatening Edessa 
and Antioch. Boemund and Tancred escaped, and the 
former sailed to Italy, to see the Pope, and gathered new 
defenders for northern Syria among the knights of 
Poitou, Limousin, and Auvergne ; but on his way back 
he visited Tarento, his old Apulian home, and here he 
died. It is said that he had caused himself to be taken 
out of Antioch, which was then surrounded by Turks, 
in a coffin which was placed on board at Seleucia ; and 
that he so escaped a Greek fleet watching for him. The 
policy of alliance between the Greeks and Turks, now 
already in existence, led to further troubles later. In 
the next year, on the 28th of February, 1 105, died 
Raymond of St. Gilles fighting for the capture of 
Tripoli the chief town of a county which was the last 
now left unorganised of all those ruled by the Christians. 

* His mother was sister to the mother of Baldwin du Bourg, whom he 
accompanied to Edessa with Baldwin I. 



86 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Three years earlier Raymond had allied himself with the 
traders of Marseilles, promising half the town of Gebal 
south of Tripoli, in return for the aid of their fleet ; but 
the city was not taken as expected in 1 102 A.D.* Mean- 
time, however, the King of Jerusalem had reduced Acre, 
by aid of the Genoese, who furnished seventy galleys, 
and thus of all the seaside cities only Tripoli, Tyre, 
Sidon, and Ascalon remained in the hands of the 
Egyptians. The Greeks were still holding Laodicea, 
but the Italian fleets were active in aid of the Latins. 
It was not, however, till 1 109 that Tripoli and Laodicea 
fell, the first on the 2ist of July by aid of the Genoese, 
and the latter by aid of the Pisans. Tripoli stood siege 
for two months, and was burned after its capitulation. 
It became the heritage of Bertram, son of Raymond of 
St. Gilles, and the capital of one of the most prosperous 
counties of the Latin kingdom. 

Tripoli itself is said to be the safest port upon the 
Syrian coast, with a large harbour and strong walls, 
having in the twelfth century a great fortress at the 
south-east corner of the town called Mount Pilgrim. 
The city was one of the richest in Syria, and already 
famous for its trade. There were then, as now, two 
distinct quarters, separated by nearly two miles of 
gardens in the flat sandy plain. The port quarter stood 
upon a promontory : the city proper called Mount 
Pilgrim from the castle was to the east upon the river 

* Regesta, Nos. 38, 44, 48, 53, 54. Bertram, eldest son of Raymond, 
took over the county from William Jordan, his cousin, whc continued the 
siege of Tripoli, and who became Lord of Area. Bertram was succeeded 
by 'his son Pons (1112-1137). 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 87 

Kadisha, which, flowing from its picturesque glen in 
Lebanon, runs north through the town under a curious 
covered bridge, which, flanked by shops, may be crossed 
without suspicion of the river beneath. The famous 
fruit gardens were worth an annual revenue of one 
hundred thousand pounds, which in those days repre- 
sented at least five times the modern value of the 
money. The sugar-cane was cultivated, and many 
industries prospered. The schools became famous, and 
four thousand merchants of silks and camelots lived 
within the walls.* Bertram, the second count, in 1 109 
granted to the Genoese a third of the port, and the 
rocks or islands near it, and free trade in the province.! 
A few years later we find the Venetians settling in 
Tripoli, and later, in Gebal. The Pisans also owned 
property in Tripoli towards the close of the century. 

The lands of the counts of Tripoli included the valley 
of the Eleutherus river, and Lebanon north and south of 
this natural highway, the border extending eastwards 
to Emesa on the Orontes, which was known as La 
Chamelle. A celebrated fortress, called Krak des Cheva- 
liers, commanded the natural highway from Tripoli 
inland, perched on the isolated top, north of a sunken 
oak dotted plain, with a village nestling at its feet 
upon the slopes. On the east slope of Lebanon, above 
Emesa, another great castle, Mont Ferrand, guarded the 
Christian frontiers ; and near the sea Margat on the 
north frontier, and Chateau Blanc, a little nearer to the 

* Burchard of Mount Sion, pp. 16, 17, English translation. Rey, Colonies 
Franques, p. 372. 

t Regesta, Nos. 55, 84. 



88 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Eleutherus, were equally famous, while Akkar domin- 
ated the southern mountain, and Batrun and Gebal 
were also ports upon this side. There is no part of 
Syria which includes better lands or more romantic 
mountains. Tortosa, the most northern seaport, was 
also one of the most venerated places of pilgrimage in 
the East, because of the picture reported to have been 
painted by St. Luke, and said to be a portrait of the 
Virgin. 

The eighteen years of rule of Baldwin I were almost 
uniformly prosperous, and he survived all the leaders 
of the first Crusade, except his cousin and successor, 
Baldwin du Bourg of Edessa : for Tancred died at 
Antioch in 1112 A.D. In the following year a Turkish 
inroad from Mosul followed a check experienced by 
Baldwin at Edessa, and the king, falling into ambush 
near Banias, escaped with difficulty ; while another raid 
from Ascalon was carried even to Jerusalem. The 
Turks pillaged the country as far as Nablus, but then 
retreated* ; and an alliance made with Damascus seems 
to have secured the safety of the kingdom while Bald- 
win lived. 

Against this transient reverse, and the bad year of 
dearth, famine, earthquake, and locusts, which followed, 
we must place the reduction of all the seaports except 

* This inroad was led by Maudud, brother of Sultan Muhammad, who 
besieged Tiberias in June, 1113. Reinforcements from Antioch reached 
Baldwin. ' Maudud retired to Damascus, where he was assassinated. 
Rudhwan of Aleppo died in December of the same year, and the Turks 
were weakened by intrigues in the north as well. Baldwin II gained a 
victory in 1119 on August I4th against the forces of El Ghazi of Mardin, 
which closed for a time the wars against Antioch. 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 89 

Tyre and Ascalon, and the extension of the kingdom 
east of Jordan in 1116 A.D., when Baldwin marched to 
Petra, and built the strong castle of Montreal, at Shobek 
on the Haj or Moslem pilgrim road in Moab, north of 
the same town of Petra. This, with a fort at Petra itself, 
and the.great castle of Kerak, frowning later from the 
precipices east of the Dead Sea, gave to the Christians 
the command of the Haj route from Damascus to Mecca. 

We have already seen that the princes of Antioch 
levied toll on the Moslem pilgrims; and the wealth of the 
caravans to Arabia was only protected by the treaty 
with Damascus. 

Yet earlier in his reign Baldwin pushed his conquests 
into the Jaulan east of the Sea of Galilee. Here in 
1 105 A.D. he built the fort of 'Aal* which the Moslems 
destroyed soon after : by treaties in 1 109 and 1 1 1 1 A.D. 
half the revenues of this volcanic region were given to 
the Christians, and half to Damascus. The ruin of this 
fortress still bears the name of " Baldwin's Castle," and 
stands at the end of a steep promontory of the moun- 
tains, on cliffs above Wady Samak, which runs in a deep 
gorge westwards into the Sea of Galilee. This strong- 
hold marked the farthest eastern limit of the Latin, 
power in Bashan, and carried the line of frontier strong- 
holds from Banias southwards, to the castles of Ajlun 
and of Tibneh and to the lofty site of Kasr er Rubud, 
which with the fort of Salt protected Gilead. This 
chain of castles long defended the great fief of Oultre 
Jourdan. 

* Arab Hist, of Crusades, quoted by Key, Colonies Franqiies> p. 434. 
Schumacher's Across the Jordan, p. 255. 

H 



90 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

In the year 1107 had also been built, by Hugh of St. 
Omer, Lord of Tiberias, the castle of Toron in Upper 
Galilee now called Tibnin, guarding the line from 
Banias to Tyre, in a strong position on the mountains. 
It played an important part in the history of later wars.* 

New and unexpected allies also came to help the 
kingdom in the middle of Baldwin's reign. The sons 
of Magnus Barefoot were then kings in Norway, and of 
these Sigurd led a fleet of sixty ships to Palestine. An 
ancient saga still records the prowess of these Norsemen, 
relating how they visited King Henry in England, and 
took eight galleys from Spanish pirates, and killed all 
the Moslems of Cintra in Portugal, and took by force a 
mighty booty in the cave of Formentera an islet south 
of Ivica in the Balearics. After visiting Sicily they 
sailed on to Acre and Jaffa, and feasted in Jerusalem, 
where with the pride of barbarians they refused to admire 
the riches of the East, but gained a fragment of the Holy 
Cross, Sigurd promising to create an archbishopric in 
pagan Norway " if he could." Desiring to perform some 
doughty deed to help the Latins, the Norsemen aided 
with their fleet the army of ten thousand men which 
marched on Sidon and Beirut. On the iQth of Decem- 
ber Sidon fell in 1 1 10 A.D., Beirut having been taken on 
the 27th of the preceding April.f Sigurd then sailed for 
Constantinople, and marched by land back to Denmark. 
He was only twenty when he safely reached Norway 
after three adventurous years. 

* See Jacques de Vitry, p. 18, English translation. 

t Will. Tyre, XI, see Sigurd in Bonn's Early Travels in Palestine. 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 91 

These conquests tempted Baldwin to invade Egypt 
where the Moslem Khalifs were ever growing weaker. 
El Mustali had died in noi, and his vizir Melek el 
Afdal was no longer in power. Since the great defeat 
at Ascalon, the Egyptians had done little, beyond 
reinforcing the garrison of that city which raided at 
times on the Christians. The Egyptian fleet had failed 
to rescue any of the other shore towns, and the dis- 
credited Fatimite dynasty was represented by a Khalif 
sunk in sloth and luxury in his palace at Cairo. In 
1118 A.D. Baldwin marched to Farama, or Pelusium, 
near Tanis, in the Delta, carrying the war far into the 
enemy's country ; but here he fell a victim to fever, and 
died in the retreat at El Arish. He must have been 
nearly sixty years of age, and had ruled well and justly 
for eighteen. He was three times married, his first wife, 
who was English, never reaching Palestine ; his second, 
an Armenian princess, having been divorced for adultery ; 
and his third, Adelaide, widow of Roger, Count of 
Sicily, being sent home after three years, although she" 
brought a rich dower to her second husband. In the 
same year in which the last of the great Crusaders died, 
the patriarch Arnold, the Emperor Alexius, and Pope 
Pascal II, also passed away, and Adelaide herself did 
not survive her husband. ; , 

Neither Godfrey nor Baldwin I left any sons, and 
their third brother Eustace did not press his claim, hear- 
ing that Baldwin du Bourg was elected under the title 
of Baldwin II.* With him the oriental blood began 
* He was the son of Hugh, Count of Rethel. 

H 2 



92 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

to mingle in the veins of the royal line, for his wife also 
was Armenian, and his famous daughters, Alice and 
Milicent, were hereafter to trouble the kingdom with 
intrigues such as the Frank and Norman ladies are not 
found to have undertaken. The early years of the new 
reign were full of strange adventures, but it was marked 
by the conquest of Tyre, and on the whole the thirteen 
years that followed were times of peace and growing 
strength. 

This, however, could hardly have been at first foretold, 
for after two years, in 1 1 20 A.D., Jocelyn, who succeeded 
the new king as Count of Edessa, and the Count of 
Tripoli, met with defeat by the Turks at Artesia east of 
Antioch ; and, soon after, Baldwin II was himself 
defeated by El Ghazi, the old enemy of the Latins and 
now sultan of Aleppo, who died a year later, leaving an 
energetic nephew Balak to succeed him.* These 
troubles were regarded as due to the general decay 
of morals among the Christians, although such deca- 
dence was not of very recent appearance. Arnold the 
Patriarch, who had denounced his rival Daimbert for 
peculation, was not himself above reproach. He was 
accused of sins with a Prankish lady, and even with a 
Muslimah, in letters received by Pascal II, from 
Baldwin I, and from the bishops, abbots, and priors of 
the kingdom ; and he was deprived of his office for a 
time. But the accusation was pronounced by the Pope 
to be unproved, and Arnold was restored. On the 

* El Ghazi's son, Suleiman, revolted against his father, who made a 
truce in August, 1121, but broke it, and attacked Syria. El Ghazi died 
near Mardin on 3rd November, 1122. 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 93 

23rd of January, 1120, a council was, however, called at 
Nablus, for the general reformation of morals.* Its 
ultimate effect, upon a population which was rapidly 
becoming half oriental though half Frank by birth, was, 
however, small ; and there can be little doubt that luxury, 
and a trying climate, were already sapping the vigour of 
the conquering race. 

In the September of 1122 A.D. Balak succeeded in 
capturing Jocelyn of Edessa, with sixty knights, and 
on the 3Oth of May following, King Baldwin II also 
fell into his hands, at the river Sinja. But the Armenians 
were faithful to a prince who had married one of their 
race, and fifty men, who swore to set him free, penetrated 
in disguise into Khartpert, the town where he was held 
a prisoner, and massacred the garrison. Jocelyn then 
undertook a perilous journey, crossing the Euphrates to 
summon aid from Syria ; but Baldwin remained holding 
the fortress. Balak at once advanced and undermined 
the walls. The Armenians in turn were massacred, and 
the king was removed to Harran, where he remained 
till ransomed after a year's imprisonment.! Meanwhile 
a regent was appointed in Jerusalem Count Eustace 
Gamier who repelled another incursion from the south. 
He made a new alliance with the Venetians, granting 
further rights in Jerusalem, promising free trade and 
quarters in Antioch, and in Ascalon, and Tyre as soon 
as they should be taken. The Doge himself came to 
the shores of Palestine ; the Egyptians were driven 

* Regesta, Nos. 83, 89. 

t William of Tyre, XII, 17, and Kemal ed DJn. 



94 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

away from Jaffa ; and the fleet and army marched on 
Tyre. Meanwhile Jocelyn had gone to help the captive 
king, and slew Balak at Membej, east of Aleppo. 
Negotiations for ransom followed, and from the I5th 
of February to the /th of July, 1124, the Christians 
besieged Tyre, to which the head of Balak was sent.* 
On the 29th of August Baldwin II was set free, and, 
aided by the Damascus Arabs, he at once besieged 
Aleppo. The Turkish Sultan of Mosul marched to aid 
the town, the siege was raised, and Baldwin retreated west. 
The Turks defeated the Damascenes, but were in turn 
repulsed from Antioch ; after this indecisive contest, 
and the surrender of Tyre, we hear no more of wars in 
any part of the kingdom proper for fourteen years. 
Baldwin II reigned seven years after his captivity, and 
yet more prosperous times succeeded. The chronicle 
of Foucher of Chartres asserts that the Latins, already 
intermarrying with Armenians and Arabs, were richer 
and happier in Palestine than they had ever been in 
Europe. They flocked to settle in and cultivate the 
land, tilling vineyards and cornfields, and trading with 
the east. The merchants of Pisa, Venice, Genoa, 
Marseilles and Amalfi lived in the cities ; and colonists 
came not only from France and Germany, but even 
from England and Brittany. We now in fact approach 
the zenith of Latin prosperity, under the last of those 
Crusaders who had marched with Godfrey, and under 
his successor, Fulk of Anjou. Pope Honorius II wrote 

* Regesta, No. 102. Eustace Gamier, the guarriian of the kingdom, was 
aided in this siege by the Venetian Doge's fleet. Tughtakin of Damascus, 
and the Egyptian fleet attempted in vain to aid the besieged. 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM, 95 

in 1128 A.D. to Baldwin II, to say that he had heard the 
king's rule to be most upright and wise, and to confirm 
his dignity as vassal of the church.* About this time 
the Christian kingdom of Armenia was also organised 
and growing strong. Maudud, brother of the Sultan of 
Mosul, was assassinated at Damascus in 1 1 14, and the 
Atabek dynasty arose under Zanghi, who ruled the 
Seljuk lands in Mesopotamia and at Aleppof ; but this 
new danger, which finally proved the greatest yet en- 
countered, only showed itself clearly five years after 
the death of Baldwin du Bourg. 

But Baldwin had no son to be his heir. His half 
Armenian daughters were Milicent, and Alice of 
Antioch. Towards the close of his reign he sought a 
son-in-law to succeed to the crown, and found one in 
Fulk of Anjou. The House of Anjou was ancient and 
famous, tracing from Tortulf the Forester, and Ingelger 
the first Count in 870 A.D. Fulk the Red, Fulk the 
Good, and Geoffrey Greygown, were followed by the 
cruel Fulk the Black, who was an early pilgrim to 
Jerusalem in the eleventh century. He is said to have 
been scourged as a penitent in its streets, and on his 
return he built at Loche a church resembling that of 
the Holy Sepulchre. After him succeeded Geoffrey 
Martel, and Fulk Rechin, and at the age of eighteen 
Fulk, the future King of Jerusalem the last pure- 

* Regesta, No. 122. 

t Imad ed Din Zanghi became governor of Mosul under the Sultan in 
1127. He took Aleppo in 1128, and Hamah in 1129. He first attacked 
the Franks in 1130. The Turkish term Atabek signifies a " guardian" of 
the Seljuk Sultan. 



96 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

blooded Latin ruler became Count of Anjou. He was 
already nearly forty when he married Milicent, and had 
a history of no little importance. Baldwin du Bourg, 
like the two former kings, was tall and strong, fair, with 
a long beard streaked with silver ; but Fulk was small 
of stature, and red haired. Like the other kings he was, 
however, brave and generous, courteous and prudent ; 
but troubled, as no others had been, by a turbulent 
wife. He had already been married, and his son, 
Geoffrey Plantagenet the Handsome, wedded the 
widowed Empress Matilda, daughter of Henry the 
First of England, some five years before his father's 
second marriage. Their son was Henry II, and thus, 
through Fulk, the Kings of England inherited Anjou, 
and, on Henry's marriage with Eleanor of Guienne and 
Poitou, the Angevine dominions, including the king- 
doms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, with Anjou, 
Normandy, Touraine, and Maine, Poitou and Guienne 
stretched over nearly half France down to the Pyrenees. 
The reign of Fulk marked the zenith of the Latin 
power in the East, although Ascalon resisted till nine 
years after his death ; Edessa was lost the year after 
Fulk was killed in hunting the first ominous sign of 
the growing power of Islam, though twelve more years 
of peace were yet to follow even then. 

In 1130 A.D. Baldwin II had attacked Damascus, but 
the campaign failed owing to the winter storms. In 
the next year he died at Jerusalem, shortly after his 
return from Antioch. Troubles had there arisen with 
his second daughter, widow of Bcemund II, who 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 97 

determined to keep the principality in her own hands, 
although the heiress was her daughter Constance, as 
yet a child and ward of King Baldwin. For this 
purpose Alice entered into treaty with the new Turkish 
Sultan Zanghi, and in this revolt against the suzerain 
she was aided by Pons of Tripoli, grandson of Raymond 
of Toulouse, who had married Tancred's widow Cecilia, 
the daughter of Fulk's mother Bertrade, born after she 
had become the mistress of the King of France, Philip I. 
The ambitious Alice was not supported by the citizens 
of Antioch. Her treaty with Zanghi was discovered, 
and the wrath of her father perhaps shortened his life. 
Jocelyn, the stout Count of Edessa, died however at the 
same time as Baldwin II, and Alice again intrigued 
with his successor, Jocelyn II, and with Pons of Tripoli. 
Fulk's first troubles were thus with his sister-in-law, and 
with the husband of his illegitimate half-sister. This 
disgraceful intrigue led to a refusal, on the part of Pons, 
to allow King Fulk to pass through his county of 
Tripoli. The king embarked therefore at Beirut, and 
went by sea to the port of Antioch, where Pons attacked 
him but was defeated. Renaud of Margat was then 
made regent of Antioch, but, immediately after, Zanghi 
raided over the Euphrates, and besieged Pons in the 
castle of Montferrand. King Fulk attacked and de- 
feated the Turks in 1133 and sent as far as the court of 
King Henry I, for Raymond of Poitou, whom he 
married to Constance a child of twelve. Her mother 
Alice retreated to Latakia, and so at length the troubles 
in the north were settled. 



98 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

But hardly was this scandal silenced when another 
trouble arose, due to the elder of the two half Armenian 
sisters, Milicent, King Fulk's own wife, the heiress of 
the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Hugh of Jaffa was the 
son of the seigneur of Puyzet, who had rebelled against 
Louis VI of France ; and his estates being confiscated 
he himself was banished. His relations with Queen 
Milicent were suspected, and his own son-in-law, Walter 
of Caesarea, denounced him as a traitor. Summoned to 
try the cause by ordeal of battle, Hugh fled to Ascalon, 
and made alliance with the Moslems. He then forti- 
fied Jaffa, and declared his decision to resist the king. 
Hugh was the cousin german of the queen, a man 
handsome, brave, and strong. King Fulk perhaps did 
not believe the charge, and entered into an agreement 
whereby the Count of Jaffa promised to suffer exile for 
three years. He came to Jerusalem, and there while 
playing at dice in the streets was stabbed by a Breton 
knight, and left for dead. He was cured however of 
his wounds, and sent to Sicily, where he died. Queen 
Milicent became a zealous benefactress of the Church, 
and in the last year of the reign of Fulk obtained, from 
the Canons of the Holy Sepulchre, the lands of Bethany 
giving Tekoa in exchange. She built the strong tower 
which still dominates the Bethany village, and founded 
a nunnery. 

Four years passed away, and in 1137 other troubles 
arose in the north. John Comnenos the Emperor of 
Byzantium, allied with Zanghi although the Christians 
of Asia Minor are said to have preferred the rule of 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 99 

the Turkish Sultan of Iconium to that of the Greeks 
advanced on Antioch, which was still claimed by the 
Emperors, and occupied Tarsus, Adana, and Malmistra, 
while Zanghi once more besieged Mont Ferrand. Pons 
of Tripoli was here slain, and King Fulk shut up in the 
castle was forced to cede it to the Turks. Raymond of 
Tripoli was taken prisoner, and forced to do homage for 
Antioch to John Comnenos, who then aided the Latins 
against the Turks, the joint forces of Byzantium and 
of King Fulk besieging Sheizur on the Orontes, which 
belonged to Aleppo. A truce was made, and John Com- 
nenos, marching back across the Taurus, was slain in 1 143, 
by a poisoned arrow. This was almost the last attempt 
made by the Greeks to regain their old ascendancy, and 
for the next half century the history of Byzantium was 
one of ever-increasing weakness.* 

It is worthy our notice that about this time (1137-8) 
the Kurdish Governor of Tekrit on the Tigris between 
Mosul and Baghdad was a certain Eyub, son of Shadi, 
much trusted by Zanghi the Atabek Sultan ; and in 
this town was then born to him a small baby destined to 
fill a large page in history half a century later Yusef 
called Salah ed Din. 

Five years later the Franks, allied with the Damas- 
cenes, took Banias once more from Zanghi, and the last 
year of King Fulk's reign was passed in peace. This 
monarch left his kingdom stronger and more secure 
than ever. On the south-west he built three castles, 

* In 1159-60 Manuel Comnenos seized Renaud of Chatillon, and 
entered Antioch, but he was then father-in-law of Baldwin III. 



TOO THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



as a defence against Ascalon, and put an end to the 
Egyptian raids into his kingdom. The first of these 
was at Yebna, or Ibelin, on the shores south of Jaffa, 
which place the Latins wrongly thought to mark the 
site of Gath. A citadel with four towers was built of 
ancient masonry at Ibelin in 1142, and a small church 
still standing as a mosque within the town. The 
second castle, on a white chalk cliff called Tell es Safi, 
south of the valley of Elah, was erected in 1144. Here 
also the square fortress, which was called Blanchegarde, 
had four corner towers. The foundations of its walls may 
still be seen, and it stood on the real site of ancient 
Gath. Another and earlier fortress closed the highway 
to Hebron, in the fertile olive yards of Beit Jibrin, south 
of Blanchegarde. This town was fortified by King 
Fulk as early as 1134, and the remains of its walls are 
also still traceable.* On the east of the kingdom Fulk 
also added the strong and important castle of Kerak, 
in Moab, to that of Montreal already noticed. Hardly 
were these various works finished, during a time when 
building was going on in all parts of Palestine, than the 
king fell while coursing a hare on the sands near Acre, 
and was killed while as yet he was not more than fifty- 
three years of age. He left two sons by Milicent, the 
eldest Baldwin, afterwards Baldwin III being about 
thirteen years of age, and Amaury his brother four 
years younger. 

During the reign of King Fulk Jerusalem attained to 

* William of Tyre, pp. 362, 437, 439, Vol. II, Guizot's translation, 
1824; Memoirs Survey West. Palestine, Vol. II, pp. 414-5, 440-1 ; Vol. 
Ill, pp. 257-8, 267-72. 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 101 

its highest pitch of prosperity, and was filled with stately 
buildings of Italian Norman architecture, none of which 
existed when it was first besieged by Godfrey. Entering 
the Gate of David from the west the pilgrim found an 
open market under David's Tower, filled with a busy 
crowd of peasant traders ; for the wisdom of the rulers 
had remitted tolls to all those pilgrims who brought 
provisions or merchandise. Plunging into the narrow 
lane of David Street, he saw the money-changers sitting 
in their shops, before the piles of bezants and marks ; 
and jostled with the eager mingled mob of Latins 
and natives. The swarthy peasant, white shirted, red 
slippered, with brown striped cloak and yellow turban ; 
the page gorgeous in brilliant silks and velvet ; the red 
cross knight in mail ; the bowman and the man-at-arms ; 
the pale Moslem in his purple robe with the green turban 
of the sherif ; the dusky Arab from over Jordan in flying 
headdress ; the blue robed peasant woman with her 
basket ; the shrinking Jewish dyer stained with indigo ; 
the black eyed Greek ; the sturdy mountaineer in felt 
and camlet, with broad red sash and baggy breeches 
a pilgrim from Armenia or the Caucasus even the 
Russian with his greasy gaberdine, long locks and 
beard ; the Italian trader and the Prankish freeman ; all 
these met in the streets in peaceful intercourse. The 
Norman seigneur, in furs and scarlet, rode his Arab 
courser down the market ; the Patriarchs of Latin or 
Eastern rites passed by in long processions ; the palmer 
with his grey gown and cockle-shell, his staff and scrip 
and flapping hat, purchased his palm branch in the 



102 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Street of Palmers east of the church. Bright cloths 
and wooden pent-houses shaded the ill paved lane, and 
further east, in Temple Street, the purple and amber and 
crimson of the merchants' dresses mingled with green 
and russet of the fruits piled in the open shops ; and the 
smell of musk, and sandal wood, and rosewater, filled 
all the street where the perfumers dwelt. The peasants' 
asses were pushed through the crowd, the camel swung 
along with loads of grain ; and under the ribbed vaults 
of Norman roofing, which still cover the streets, the 
butchers and herbalists plied their trades ; and the odour 
of food cooked for the pilgrims filled Malquisinat. 

A great cathedral now enclosed the ancient chapels, 
and a strong tall belfry rose above the southern court- 
yard of the Church of the Sepulchre. Here Philip 
D'Aubigny reposed under his tombstone, daily trodden 
by countless feet of those who entered under the pointed 
arches, between the slender clustered pillars of the 
southern doorway, where boldly carved reliefs presented 
scenes from the last days of the Saviour's life the ass 
and foal on Olivet, the raising of Lazarus, the Last 
Supper, and allegoric figures of the bird and centaur, 
with delicate arabesques, running along the cross beams 
of the arches, with cornices and pillared windows above, 
all wrought in the same perfect style of Norman 
Romanesque. East of the plain Gothic chapel of the 
Sepulchre, in its rotunda open to the air above, was now 
erected the great choir of the canons, with apses to the 
east ; and on the vaults, and dome above, the vine of 
David was painted. Here stood the Patriarch's throne, 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 10'- 



while for the Greek bishops humbler seats were left 
between the choir and the rotunda. The abbey of the 
Canons of St. Sepulchre was on the east, above the 
cavern chapel of Helena. On the west another pointed 
arch led from the level of the Patriarch's street, into the 
gallery of the round building enclosing the Tomb. In 
other respects there was but little change. The older 
chapels were left untouched ; but north of Calvary the 
tombs of two more rulers stood by Godfrey's, and figures 
of kings and saints in glass mosaic here adorned the 
church, including Constantine, Heraclius, and Queen 
Helena, with pictures of the Resurrection, the Last 
Supper, and Elijah fed by ravens. 

West of the covered street, and south of the Sepulchre 
Cathedral, a great quadrangular block of noble buildings 
had arisen. It was reached by the broad arched portal, 
on which the twelve months were carved, each repre- 
sented by a human figure with Gothic lettering for the 
month name over it. The church of Ste. Marie la Grande 
occupied all the north-east corner of the block, and south 
of this a convent stood, with mighty reservoirs, sinking 
to the rock of the deep valley beneath. The Hospital 
was to the west, divided by a narrow lane with shops, 
from church and convent. It also had its chapel, with 
bells whose ringing was a cause of quarrel with the 
canons opposite ; but of this famous Hospital w.e as yet 
know nothing, hidden as it is beneath the mounds of 
rubbish which are not cleared away. 

Baldwin I had made the Templum Salomonis his 
palace, but when the Burgundian knights were there 



104 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

established, the Kings of Jerusalem fixed their abode 
where now the Greek Patriarch resides, to the west of 
the cathedral, and separated from it by the " Street of 
the Patriarch," which ran north and south. This palace 
appears to have extended over the vaulted street, so 
that a window looked down into the church itself; a 
garden inside its courtyard was adorned with orange 
trees and pomegranates. It included many vaulted 
rooms, and could with comfort contain a hundred 
persons.* 

Passing eastward, and leaving on the right two other 
churches of St. Mary, the pilgrim gained the covered 
street of St. Stephen, leading to the northern gate ; and 
further yet to the north-east, entered the Ghetto or 
Juiverie, where also churches stood St. Mary Magdalen . 
and the small chapel of St. Peter, and near the eastern 
wall St. Anne, with the covered pool, then called 
Bethesda or Piscina Interior. On Sion, to the south- 
west, the great Armenian church of St. James stood by 
its cypress garden, and within, rich carpets covered the 
floor, and the chapel of St. James was, perhaps, already 
covered with tortoise-shell and mother-of-pearl, while in 
the southern corridor, a fresco represented the fate of 
sinners in the gaping jaws of hell. In this quarter there 
were other Latin churches St. Giles and St. James the 
Less among them ; but it was a cause of bitter complaint 
by Germans that as yet no street or hospice in the city 
belonged to them. The German Knights' hospital, and 
the German lake (outside the city to the west) were not 

* Felix Fabri, Vol. I, Part II, p. 394 English translation. 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 105 

yet in existence, but in Jerusalem there were at least 
fifteen Latin churches, within the walls, and nine on 
Olivet and near the city on the other sides, not counting 
older buildings of the Greeks, and. Syrians, Armenians, 
Georgians, and Copts. 

The great enclosure of the Temple itself was also 
changed. No longer a mosque it had become, first the 
royal palace, and then the Hospice of the Templars. 
These white-robed figures, with the long red cross upon 
their breasts, tonsured, but clad in mail beneath the robe, 
are brethren of the Temple knights who have sworn 
to keep the Holy Land for Christendom, and to aid 
their brethren the canons of the Templum Domini. 
The Order, founded by Baldwin I in 1118 A.D., is 
destined to become the richest and the proudest of all 
the half-lay, half-religious, Orders. They have their 
gardens and houses round the courtyard : their horses 
are stabled in the great vaults to the east.* The long 
basilica of St. Mary, built by Justinian on the south 
wall, is called by them the Templum Salomonis ; and 
apses with carved pillars have been added to its east, 
while on the west a Norman building, lately finished, is 
the great refectory of the Order ; beneath are baths, 
and granaries, and stores for wood, and cisterns ; and 
to the north are courts and vestibules and gardens. 

The central building in the great enclosure is Abd el 

Melek's chapel of the Rock eight-sided and domed 

standing on a higher platform, the model of future 

temple churches not only in Palestine, but in France and 

* Theodorich, 1172 A.U., pp. 24, 31. English translation. 

I 



106 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

England also. The golden Kufic letters, in glass 
mosaic, with a rich blue ground, still attest the age and 
character of this most beautiful chapel, but were unread 
by the Latins though thought to refer to Omar.* The 
smaller Chapel of the Chain to the east the model of the 
Templum Domini was called by Franks the Chapel of 
St. James. The outer walls of the Templumf glowed 
with mosaics of glass, and long inscriptions in Latin ran 
beneath the upper arcade, invoking peace for ever on 
the Holy House. The vaulted dome of painted wood 
was covered with lead, and on its apex was the golden 
cross, hateful to Moslems. The Sacred Rock beneath 
was covered with marble, and on it stood an altar. The 
footprint of Muhammad was shown as a footprint of 
Christ. A beautiful screen of hammered iron work, 
with finials of the lilies of St. Joseph, ran between the 
pillars of the inner circle which supported the dome. 
There were small altars with curiously carved twisted 
pillars on the walls ; and frescoes, painted between the 
gates and windows, recalled the legends which grew up 
around the spot. Here Jacob was depicted laying his 
head on the stone of Bethel, which some ignorantly 
recognised in the Sacred Rock of the Templum, and 
angels walked upon the ladder above him. Here 
Simeon held the Holy Babe ; and Mary sat as a child 
with seven maidens reared in the Temple. To the Old 
and New Testament stories thus was added, one from 
Jerome's Latin Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, or from 

* William of Tyre, I, and VIII 2. 

t John cf Wiirzburg, IV, 1160-70, A.D. pp., 12-20, English translation. 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 107 

the Gospel of St. James then held as part of Scripture. 
The legend told how Mary span true purple and scarlet, 
fed by the angels, and guarded by the priests ; how 
Joseph was chosen from her suitors by ordeal of the rod 
which bloomed with lilies, and from which a dove flew 
forth. The faded relics of these frescoes still remain 
beneath the marble flags with which Saladin covered 
them later. 

Such was Jerusalem when Fulk of Anjou died ; and 
so it remained for more than forty years after his body 
had been placed by that of Godfrey. His son, a gallant 
boy as yet t succeeded him, and Milicent, the scheming 
mother, was crowned beside him in the new cathedral ; 
another reign of broken peace followed that of Fulk, 
and lasted eighteen years. Edessa fell to Zanghi, and a 
new power rose, threatening the future loss of Palestine 
and the reunion of the Moslem world. The days of the 
last pure blooded Prankish king were the best days of 
the Latin rule. 

The kings of Jerusalem seemed to have always 
opened their reigns with some campaign, in which they 
showed their prowess and won their spurs. The new 
king tall and brave like his ancestors prepared, 
though yet a boy of thirteen, to lead his army over 
Jordan, attacking the plains of Bashan south of Da- 
mascus. Meanwhile, the Count of Edessa, Jocelyn II 
de Courtenay, was besieging Aleppo, while Sultan 
Zanghi with a large army advanced on Edessa, and 
mined the walls, and slew the defenders on the I4th of 
December, 1144 A.D. In September, 1146, he was 

I 2 



io8 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

assassinated, and Jocelyn II, entering the city by the 
water gate, strove to re-establish his power ; but Nur ed 
Din " Light of the Faith," the Sultan of Aleppo and 
Damascus, succeeded to the western dominions of his 
father Zanghi,* and Jocelyn fled from Edessa to Samo- 
sata. Thus Edessa was lost for ever, and Jocelyn II, 
taken captive at Aleppo about 1 149, there died in a dun- 
geon nine years later. He was not friendly with Raymond 
of Antioch, and received no help from Jerusalem. The 
first great bulwark of the kingdom was broken down, 
and the alarm was felt not only in Palestine, but in 
Europe also. The young king, Baldwin III, had raided 
eastwards, by Edrei, to within sight of Bostra ; but the 
Bashan plains are waterless, and the heat was great, and 
Nur ed Din was approaching. Thus, in the south as 
well as in the north, the Christians experienced a check. 
Envoys were sent to France, where Louis VII a pious 
king had ruled for seven years, and was still only 
thirty-five years of age. St. Bernard then Abbot of 
Clairvaux preached a new Crusade in 1145, and 
though already growing old,f and within two years of 
his death, he traversed France, and prevailed even on 
the Emperor Conrad III to take the Cross. In 
England the civil wars of Stephen and Matilda made 
it hopeless to expect assistance. In Germany a fanatic 
monk named Rudolph proposed to murder all the Jews 
which St. Bernard, to his lasting credit, opposed. Segur, 
the wise minister of Louis, opposed the new adventure ; 

* Zanghi's other son, Kutb ed Din, ruled Mesopotamia from Mosul, 
t He was about fifty-four. In 1145 Pope Lucius II was killed in the 
riots at Rome. 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 109 

but at the Council of Bourges, the step was decided, and a 
bull of Eugenius III confirmed the measure. The forces 
of Germany gathered at Ratisbon, and Frederic Barba- 
rossa, nephew of the German emperor, took the cross. 
The French forces also gathered at Metz, and Bernard 
wrote to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, counselling amity 
with the Templars in presence of the common danger.* 
The relics of John the Baptist had just been found in 
Samaria, and this no doubt encouraged the Christians, 
who were ordered to observe a penitential period of 
forty days.f 

The new Crusaders met with troubles in Thrace, and 
massacred the Greeks at Adrianople. Manuel Com- 
nenos, the grandson of Alexius, was Emperor at Byzan- 
tium : he did little to assist the Latins. The Germans 
crossed the straits to Cappadocia, passing Nicea in 
October of 1 147 A.D. They marched in two divisions 
one along the old route to Iconium, and the second 
further west towards Laodicea. Famine, thirst, and 
want of discipline prepared an easy victory for the 
Turks : the western division lost its road, and fell before 
the onslaught of the Moslems ; the eastern also perished 
near Iconium. Conrad escaped to Nicea, with Frederic 
who was destined to attempt the same adventure nearly 
half a century later. Meanwhile the French were 
struggling on along the coast route, by the Cayster and 
valley of the Meander, forcing a passage over this river, 
and reaching, after disastrous conflicts, the seaport of 

* Epit. 175, see Regesta, No. 238. 
t Regesta, No. 235. 



i io THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Satalia, across the Cadmus range. King Louis em- 
barked at this place to go by sea to Antioch, deserting 
all who could not gain a passage with him. The plague 
appeared among the French : the Greeks refused to 
help them : a small force of about 3,000 or 4,000 men 
strove to march on Tarsus, but perished on the way ; 
and thus with but a quarter of his army, the pious 
monarch, with his gay queen, Eleanor of Guienne, at 
length arrived in Antioch. 

Raymond of Poitou, husband of the heiress Con- 
stance, feasted the French, and so enchanted Eleanor 
destined hereafter herself, as wife of Henry II, to feel the 
pangs of jealousy for Rosamond Clifford that she 
declared her wish to be divorced from Louis for his 
sake. She was therefore carried off by night, and the 
remnant of the French Crusade, diverted from its proper 
aim of regaining Edessa, was directed to uncertain 
objects further south. With Louis VII came also 
Renaud of Chatillon, whom Constance of Antioch chose 
as her second husband, and who was to be in future the 
chief cause of Christian misfortunes, through the in- 
justice and violence of his acts against the Moslems. A 
great Council was held on June the 24th, 1 148, by all 
the allies, at Acre.* Conrad and Frederic, Louis and 
Baldwin, the legate, the Masters of the Temple and the 
Hospital were present, with many counts and other 
magnates of Europe and Syria, including all the 
bishops, and Manasseh, cousin of Queen Milicent, con- 
stable of the kingdom. Europe was once more united 
* Regesta, No. 250 ; Will. Tyre, XVII, I. 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. in 



by a common fear, for the loss of Edessa threatened not 
only loss of Palestine, and of the commerce of the East 
yearly growing more important, but it threatened the 
possible invasion of Europe by the Turkish race, already 
pushed westwards by the growing power of the Mongols 
in Central Asia. Palestine and Byzantium had become 
the frontier lands of the western civilised world, and 
statesmanship, no less than religion or Papal policy, 
was bent upon maintaining all that had been gained. 
The decision reached, after this important Council, was 
to march against Damascus ; but the result of the 
enterprise unfortunately weakened rather than aided 
the Christian cause. The city was held by Eyub, the 
Kurdish Emir from Tekrit, already mentioned, who had 
become Governor of Baalbek : his son destined to be 
distinguished as the " honour of the faith " Saldh-ed- 
^Din, was probably with him as a child of ten. 

Damascus stood as now amid its gardens, with 
minarets out-topping its poplars ; beside the rushing 
Barada, which flows into the plain from desert gorges 
on the west ; and under the shadow of the snow- 
crowned Hermon. The Christian army marched by 
Banias, south of the mountain, and reached the city in 
the heat of summer. The first attack was on the west 
close to the river, but here the mud-built garden walls 
were held by bowmen, hidden among the trees and 
hedges. The Templars are said to have counselled 
attack upon the south and east, where no such out- 
works covered the ramparts ; but this was found 
impracticable, since the army was too far from water to 



ii2 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

maintain its camp ; and rumours reached the princes of a 
general levy of the Turkish armies under Nur ed Din, 
advancing from Aleppo and Mosul. Having failed to 
take Damascus by surprise the Franks retreated : the 
French declared themselves betrayed, and all the blame 
was laid upon the Templars,* whose ambition was 
already suspected, and who, according to the vulgar 
belief, had taken casks of gold from Eyub to betray the 
cause. Louis VII remained a year in Palestine, and 
left donations to the monastery of Milicent,f but no 
further warlike attempts were made. 

On his way home by sea King Louis was nearly 
captured by the Greeks, but saved by a Norman fleet. 
King Roger of Sicily, nephew of Robert Guiscard, was 
then at the height of his power. After having lost 
Apulia for a time on the fall of Anaclete the anti-Pope 
he had regained it by agreement with the new Pope, 
and had successfully raided on the Moslems of Tripoli 
in Africa. He had renewed the old contest against the 
Byzantines, and his fleet attacked Corfu and Athens in 
1146. Two years later it even threatened Constanti- 
nople. Manuel Comnenos in revenge attacked southern 
Italy in 1155, but his alliance with Venice was finally 
broken, and a truce between Sicily and Byzantium 
lasted for thirty years, from 1156 A.D. The royal 
Norman house in Sicily did not, however, retain its 
conquests as long as did the descendants of Boemund in 
Antioch. The last male heir died in 1189, and Con- 

* John of Wurzburg, Ch, V, writing in 1160-70 A.D., p. 21, English 
translation. 
t Regesta> No. 296. 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 113 

stance of Sicily married Henry VI, son of Frederic 
Barbarossa, who claimed for Germany, through her, the 
Italian kingdom of the Normans. 

In the year 1149 A.D. Nur ed Din arrived from 
Mosul, and many castles of the Prince of Antioch were 
taken, and Raymond of Poitou slain with several barons, 
on the S/th of June. Parthians, and Persians from 
Khorassan, came in the Sultan's army, and from Iconium 
came other Turkish bands raiding the country and 
carrying off the crops.* In the south there was also 
trouble : for Manasseh de Herges the Constable, cousin 
of Queen Milicent, rebelled, and seized on Mirabel, a 
fortress in the plains near Lydda, standing beside the 
reedy springs of Antipatris. He, however, surrendered 
when besieged by the king. The ambition of Milicent 
was one of the early causes of dissension in Syria, and 
during a great part of her lifetime she appears to have 
governed the south, King Baldwin III, remaining in 
Tyre and Acre for a while. He afterwards seized 
Nablus and besieged his mother at Jerusalem in the 
Tower of David. The mediation of the Patriarch led to 
an agreement at last, and Milicent retired to Nablus, 
where she died on the nth September, 1161. Mean- 
while the energies of the Latins were turned once more 
towards Ascalon, and in 1153 A.D., after seven months' 
siege, it fell. 

The wisdom of King Fulk, in forming a base from 
which this city could be safely attacked, was now 
evident, and the increasing weakness of Egypt made its 
* Regesta, No. 261, Will. Tyre, XVII, 9. 



ii4 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



garrison at Ascalon an easy prey. New piigrims came 
to swell the Christian ranks in spring, but a fleet was also 
needful, for the city stood upon low cliffs above the reef 
which made a landing place not indeed a port for 
Egyptian reinforcements. There was but little water in 
the city, which depended on its wells and cisterns ; but 
at the town of Mejdel to the north, supplies were avail- 
able for the Christian army. The walls, which William 
of Tyre compares to a bow with its string to the west, 
were built of small stones set in hard cement, and over- 
looking lower outworks. Four gates existed on the 
four sides of the city, and many towers (of which the 
two largest flanked the western entry) strengthened 
the ramparts. All round were sand dunes, but on the 
north were vines and fruit trees and fertile valleys. 

Neither the Venetians, the Genoese, nor the Pisans 
aided the Latin army. The first two cities were intent on 
quarrels at home between themselves : the Pisans were 
negotiating for free passage to the East through Egypt, 
and bound themselves by treaty, neither to attack the 
Khalif nor to help the Franks to do so ; and in return 
their prisoners were released, and town-halls granted 
them in Cairo and Alexandria, with promises of safety 
and free trade.* King Baldwin had, however, made 
a league with Marseilles, in the autumn of 1152, and 
promised to this city streets and churches in Acre 
and Jerusalem, and part of Ramleh, with free trade in 
Palestine.! The Marseilles fleet apparently was that 

* Kegssta, Nos. 288, 289. 
t Regesta, No. 276. 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 115 

which anchored in the roadstead of Ascalon, and warded 
off the Egyptian galleys. The siege was undertaken on 
25th of January, with, as usual, wooden towers higher 
than the walls. The Moslems cast down wood soaked 
with oil to burn the towers ; but the wind was in the east, 
the flames calcined the walls, and the fire spread into 
the city. The breach so formed was stormed by the 
Templars, who hoped to add the city to their other 
fortresses. The town seemed won for the moment, but 
the Moslems drove the Christians out, and barricaded 
the wall. The siege was well-nigh raised, but Ascalon 
surrendered to a second attack on the I2th of August, 
1153 A.D.,* and the inhabitants, safely conducted through 
the desert, retired to Egypt, leaving the last Egyptian 
stronghold in the hands of Christendom, in the tenth 
year of Baldwin III. 

Secure on the south, the king next turned to the 
north, and three years later advanced to help the 
Hospitallers in Banias, which Nur ed Din was besieging. 
The siege was raised ; but in retiring King Baldwin fell 
into an ambush south of the Huleh Lake, and fled to 
the castle of Safed, his scattered followers, including 
eighty-seven Templars, submitting to become the slaves 
of the Saracens. In revenge a wedding party of Saracens 
was surprised, and many were taken, no doubt for ex- 
change of prisoners.! New Flemish forces under Theo- 
doric, who married Baldwin's half sister Sibyl, arrived 
during this year to strengthen Antioch ; and the frontier 

* Boha ed Din says on rgth September, 1153. 

t Will. Tyre, XVIII, 14, gives the date i8th June, 1157. The details 
are from a letter of Adrian IV. See Regesta, No. 326. 



ii6 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM 

fortress of Harenc was retaken and Sheizur (or Caesarea) 
on the Orontes. These successes led to fourteen years 
of peace in Palestine, marred only by a fruitless efforts 
to conquer Egypt. Alliance with the Greeks also 
resulted from the marriage, in September, 1159, of Bald- 
win III with Theodora, a girl of thirteen, niece of 
Manuel Comnenos the emperor ; and she brought a rich 
dowry to aid the kingdom. Thus the last five years of 
Baldwin's reign were passed in peace, which was not less 
secure when Milicent died five months before her son 
and when Renaud of Chatillon was taken prisoner 
by Manuel Comnenos at Malmistra, on the 23rd of 
November, 1 160,* and afterwards by Nur ed Din. During 
this period, however, the quarrels of the Church, and the 
jealousies of the fighting Orders, troubled the country. 
The Orders became a source of weakness rather than 
strength, being mutually envious, and independent also 
both of the king and of the Church, owing allegiance only 
to the Pope, and to the Masters. In 1155 the Knights 
Hospitallers openly opposed Foucher, the Patriarch of 
Jerusalem, refusing to pay tithes, and protecting all who 
lay under the ban of the Church, which had no power 
to lay an interdict upon the lands of the Order. They 
rang their chapel bells to the annoyance of Amaury, prior 
of the Holy Sepulchre, and demanded as their right 
alms and possessions which the Church retained.f The 
Patriarch went to Rome, but got little satisfaction ; 
another quarrel of the canons with the monks of Olivet, 

* William of Tyre, XVIII, 29 ; Regesta, 383. 
t Regesta, Nos. 316, 318. 



THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 117 



as to the service on Ascension Sunday, was, however, 
.set at rest during his absence.* The Church was divided 
against itself in Syria, and also quarrelled with the ruling 
princes. The quarrels of the patriarchs of Jerusalem 
and Antioch began even in the reign of King Fulk, when 
Innocent II intervened, placing the bishops of Acre, 
Tyre, Sidon, and Beirut under Jerusalemf. The villeins 
in villages belonging to the canons of the Holy Sepulchre 
were discontented with their masters, but got little pity 
from Milicent.^: Raymond of Aquitaine, and Renaud of 
Chatillon, in Antioch, created further troubles with the 
Church ; and through these discords the king found little 
help in dangerous times from either priests or military 
monks. Renaud of Chatillon had been harrying Cyprus, 
after King Louis left him in the East, and had married 
Constance, heiress of Antioch, after Raymond of Poitou 
was slain. This was the cause of quarrel with the 
Patriarch, to whom perhaps the restless and dangerous 
character of Renaud was better known than to the king. 
After seventeen years of captivity at Aleppo and after 
the death of Constance, Renaud married again, his second 
wife being widow of Humphrey of Toron, constable of 
the kingdom. Thus, about nine years before the fall of 
Jerusalem, he was perhaps the most powerful of the 
barons, for by this second marriage he became Seigneur 
of Kerak and Montreal, the great fief of the family of 
Philip of Nablus, called Oultre Jourdan. The family 
held lands in Upper Galilee near Maron, Toron, and Tyre. 

* Regesta, No. 323. 

t Regesta, Nos. 171, 178. 

I Regesta, Nos. 278, 307. 



ii8 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



On the east they afterwards owned the country from 
the Zerka Valley to the Red Sea, including the castles 
of Ahamant, Petra, Montreal, and Kerak, and the deserts 
to Sinai, given by Baldwin III in exchange for the fiefs 
in Galilee and at Nablus, in the last year but one of 
his reign.* In 1162 A.D., coming back from Antioch, 
the king died, on the i6th February, of fever in Beirut, 
being little over thirty years of age. He left the king- 
dom to his younger brother Amaury less capable 
and less well educated than himself, and he left, in 
Renaud of Chatillon, an ambitious and unscrupulous 
soldier, whose faithlessness in dealing with the Moslems 
was the prime reason of the coming downfall. He left 
two great Orders jealous of each other, and with interests 
at variance with those of their suzerain. He left a 
Church ill-governed, and hated by the peasantry of 
Palestine, and powerful parties of Greek and Syrian 
Christians, to whom the Latin clergy were equally 
detestable. He left also an army diminished in numbers 
and courage, and filled with half-caste natives, who had 
failed before the Turks. The vices and luxury of the 
second generation alike weakened the Christian state ; 
and all the elements of catastrophe had appeared under 
the rule of Milicent, his mother. While strong states- 
manship, close union, valour and justice, were needed to 
save the kingdom, the successors of Baldwin III were 
weak and obstinate, and the Latins were divided by 
civil quarrels just at the time when Islam once again 
became united. 

* Re^esta, No. 366. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE Loss OF THE KINGDOM. 

WE have now considered sixty years of growth and 
prosperity, during which three generations of kings 
succeeded each other, and the walls of Jerusalem grew 
old and ruinous, because no enemy appeared before them. 
Then followed a quarter of a century of misfortune, and 
increasing weakness, ere a Moslem conqueror once more 
entered the Holy City, and the kingdom was lost ; 
though Palestine remained, with diminished boundaries, 
a Christian possession for even a century more. 

When in the winter of 1162 Baldwin III died in his 
youth, El Adid, the last of the Fatimites, was Khalif in 
Egypt, having acceded two years earlier. He was the 
fifth successor of El Mustali, who had seen Jerusalem 
taken by Godfrey ; and each Khalif was weaker than 
his predecessor, while Egypt groaned under the tyranny 
of viziers, and the intrigues of rival emirs. There were 
now two parties in the country that of Dargham the 
vizir, and that of his rival Shawer, whom he had defeated 
and banished. The latter fled to Damascus, and allied 
himself to the great Sunnee power of the North, pro- 



120 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



posing to Nured Din* an union of Islam, in which Egypt 
should become a province under the Baghdad Khalif, of 
which no doubt Shawer was to be the sultan. The danger 
was a great one, not only for Egypt, but for the Chris- 
tian kingdom of Syria also : for the Turkish power was 
steadily increasing, and the Atabek brothers ruled, from 
Mosul and Damascus almost to the Afghan borders. 
It was not unnatural, then, that Egypt and Palestine 
should unite against the Sunnee Moslems : for Nur ed 
Din had chosen the bravest of his generals Shirkoh the 
Kurd, brother of Eyub and uncle of Saladin who 
marched through Moab, past the Christian castles, cross- 
ing westwards over the deserts of Sinai. At first Shawer 
and Shirkoh were unsuccessful ; but Dargham, having 
routed them, was slain by an arrow in the battle, and 
the Syrian allies occupied Cairo on 8th May, 1163, but 
refused apparently to give it over to Shawer. The 
latter, whose sole aim was self advancement, then sent 
secretly to King Amaury asking his aid. It was clearly 
dangerous to Palestine that Nur ed Din should have the 
power to attack it on all sides by holding Egypt ; and 
Amaury in 1163 besieged Bilbeis which Shirkoh held. 
The town was not taken because, as Amaury explains in 
a letter to Louis VII of France, a sudden rising of the 
" River of Paradise " occurred, by which phrase the 
autumn rising of the Nile was meant, the springs of 
that great river being then thought to flow from some 
mysterious Eden.f Shirkoh, however, entered into treaty 

* Nur ed Din had entered Damascus in 1154 A.D. 
t Regesta, No. 382. 



THE LOSS OF THE KINGDOM. 121 

with Amaury and with Shawer, and withdrew his forces 
in November to Damascus. The first attempt of Nur 
ed Din thus failed in its real object, and he himself 
suffered a check in Northern Syria while attacking 
Tripoli. But in the following year the tide again set 
against the Christians, and Amaury sought alliance with 
the Greeks, and wrote for help to France, lest Antioch 
should become a Greek possession. In April he wrote 
again, to say that many of the Antioch castles had 
fallen ; and urgently besought immediate aid.* Nur ed 
Din pressed on, and took the frontier fortress of 
Harenc ; and Boemund III of Antioch, and Raymond 
of Tripoli, grandson of Bertram, with Prince Thoros of 
Armenia, and the Greek Governor of Cilicia, were routed, 
and all the leaders save Thoros taken prisoners, while 
the Christian army fled. But for the sudden arrival in 
Syria of Thierry, Count of Flanders, with a few stout 
knights, the whole of Northern Syria might have fallen 
even then : for its leaders were captives, with Renaud of 
Chatillon, at Aleppo on the I2th of August, while in 
the July of the same year Amaury was invading Egypt 
aided by the Templars. A new and fatal policy was 
about to be followed by the king, and one which 
the Templars soon discountenanced. They wrote to 
Louis VII to tell how, while Bilbeis was captured in the 
south, the lands of Antioch were falling to the Turks 
and Arabs: and on the i/th of October Banias the 
mighty frontier fortress guarding the Jordan springs 
was betrayed to Nur ed Din.f Amaury himself, at the 
* Regesta, Nos. 394, 396. t Regesta, Nos. 403, 404, 405, 406, 407. 

K 



J22 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

close of this year of mingled success and defeat, ad- 
dressed a letter to the Master of the Hospital in Europe, 
and to all clergy and sons of the Church in the West, 
describing the miseries of the Holy Land, and telling 
Louis VII how Banias was lost* 

King Amaury was then not more than twenty-seven 
years of age, arid was neither loved nor respected in his 
kingdom. He, like his ancestors, was tall and hand- 
some, with well-formed features and brown hair ; but 
the Armenian blood perhaps accounted for the cor- 
pulence which marred his figure, and the frank and 
generous manners' of the former kings were not inherited 
by this unfortunate monarch, whose avarice betokened 
the Armenian, and whose gloomy reserve was not 
accompanied by austerity of life. Not only was he 
licentious in morals, but he was also suspected of 
religious scepticism, nor was the sanctity of treaties any 
reason in his sight against changing the usual policy of 
his predecessors, and fighting the same Egyptians whom 
he had just been aiding against Shirkoh. 

In 1165 the Holy War was preached in Baghdad, 
by order of the Sunnee Khalif ; and Shirkoh, with his 
nephew Saladin, was sent once more to Egypt in the 
autumn. Shawer the vizir sent in haste to Amaury, and 
the Christian army was despatched to Gaza to watch 
the Syrian advance. With such a road to traverse it 
was no light matter to carry any force from Damascus 
to the Delta, and in the present instance the Turks and 
Syrians met with burning winds, and men and camels 

* Regesta, Nos. 410, 411. 



THE LOSS OF THE KINGDOM. 123 

perished in the deserts of Moab, or in the waterless and 
rugged wilderness of Sinai. But Nur ed Din was 
not to be gainsaid;* and once again in 1167 ambas- 
sadors from Egypt summoned Christian help, offering 
a sum of some. .140,000, which we must reckon to 
have then been worth five times as much as now. 
Amaury consented, and Hugh of Caesarea, with Foucher, 
a Templar, were sent as envoys, and even admitted 
to an audience with the Khalif, insisting on the 
treaty being ratified by a grasp of the naked hand, 
which the religious head of the Shiah faith was very 
loth to grant. The splendour of his palace at Cairo, 
his golden throne and rich robes, his mysterious retire- 
ment and many wives, the jewelled curtains which 
concealed his audience hall, the Nubian guards, the 
marble courts and cool fountains, the strange beasts and 
gaudy birds in his pleasure grounds, and the abject 
prostration of Shawer before his master, seem to have 
much impressed the Prankish knights ; the Khalif a 
young and handsome man, but like his predecessors a 
mere sacred figurehead in Egypt was forced to tolerate 
his Christian allies, and a treaty was made which, to the 
Templars at least, if not to Amaury, was binding.f 
When Shirkoh next advanced from Syria in the spring 
of 1167, a battle was waged near Cairo, and Alexandria 
was taken from the Syrian invaders. The second 

* Boha ed Din does not mention the disaster in the Sinaitic desert, but 
speaks of Shirkoh's leaving Damascus in January, 1167, and being in Egypt 
till April. Nur ed Din was attacking the Franks in Syria during this year, 
and joined forces with his brother Kutb ed Din, near Hamath. In July- 
August he assaulted the castle of Hunin in Upper Galilee. 

t Will. Tyre, XIX, 17, 18. 

K 2 



124 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

attempt of Nur ed Din failed like the first, and the 
Christians returned once more to Palestine. 

But Amaury was pondering another policy, and in 
the same year 1 167 A.D., allied himself with the Greeks, 
marrying Maria, a gra,nd-niece ot Manuel Comnenos, 
who promised in return a fleet, by aid of which the 
Christian king proposed to conquer Egypt for himself. 
To this violation of the recent treaty the Templars were 
steadily opposed. Their, views were sound in policy, as 
well as honourable. They held that while the forces of 
the Turks were yearly pressing harder upon Antioch, 
and Shirkoh and Saladin gathering all the Syrians and 
Arabs at Damascus, it was folly to attempt an enterprise 
which was always difficult, because of the intricacy of 
the irrigation channels in the Delta, protecting Cairo, and 
rendering attack peculiarly perilous ; and an attempt 
which would raise against the Christians, guilty of 
breaking faith with the Khalif, the whole mixed Shiah 
population of Nubia, Palestine, and Egypt. But Amaury 
was obstinate, and covetous of the prize which seemed 
so ready to his hand, while Egypt was unable to resist 
invasion. At Tyre he met the Greek Emperor, and 
concerted his plan during the marriage festival.* It 
was an ill-omened alliance, and led to no results. Amaury 
had already been married, and by his first wife had a 
son, afterwards Baldwin IV, then but six years old, and 
a daughter Sibyl, children of Agnes, daughter of the 
younger Jocelyn of Edessa. Isabelle, his second daughter, 

* Manuel Comnenos, one of the few Greek Emperors allied to Franks, 
had twice married, first, a sister-in-law of the Emperor Conrad, and 
secondly, a daughter of the Prince of Antioch. 



THE LOSS OF THE KINGDOM, 125 

was the child of Maria Comnena. The education of 
Baldwin was given, three years later, to William, the 
famous Archbishop of Tyre, who wrote the history on 
which mainly we depend for knowledge of these later 
days of trouble. The terrible discovery made by the 
tutor saddened the later days of Amaury. His son was 
a leper ; and the dread disease, which usually appears in 
children only about the age of twelve at earliest, had 
already withered the right arm which should have held 
a sword, and gradually spread to both the hands and feet. 

In the year 1168, Nur ed Din was occupied with the 
affairs of the Aleppo province, but prepared once more 
to send Shirkoh (called Asad ed Din " the lion of the 
faith ") to Egypt in December. Saladin confessed in 
later years that he went unwillingly with his uncle 
preferring perhaps the pleasures of Damascus. " Well 
may we apply," says his friend Boha ed Din, " the words 
of God ' Perchance ye may hate a thing that is for 
your good. '" (Koran II, 213.) 

On the nth of October, 1168, King Amaury signed 
a treaty with the Master of the Hospital, to aid him in 
his unjust war on Egypt. It promised to the Order the 
lands, both cultivated and untilled, round Bilbeis, to 
the value of about ,35,000 of annual rent, and ,20,000 
additional from ten Egyptian cities, including Cairo and 
Damietta, Alexandria and Tan is. In every town they 
had the right to build a hospice, and half the spoil of 
conquered cities was to be for them. Oh these con- 
ditions the Order of St. John promised the aid" of a 
thousand knights, and of an equal number of Syrian 



126 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

horsemen called Turkopoles,* under experienced leaders; 
stipulating that if more could be sent, more money should 
be given, but if fewer then less ; but that whenever the 
king himself was not with the army all they could seize 
by force should be for the Order. " O blind cupidity of 
men," says William of Tyre, " there was no foe for us in 
the south : the Egyptians brought their merchandise, 
and spent their gold in our country, and now all is 
changed . . . the avarice of one man has done 
this : his cupidity has clouded the clear bright sky 
which the goodness of the Lord had given us." 

The somewhat doubtful allies chosen by Amaury 
Greeks and Egyptians and Armenians were forced 
upon him however by the state of Europe. His letters 
to the West were many and urgent, but they met with 
no response. Louis VII was then fifty years of age., and 
had just married his third wife, Alice of Champagne. 
He was at war with Henry the Second of England. The 
Pope had fled from Italy to France, and the Italians 
were distracted by quarrels of the Genoese and Vene- 
tians, the Guelphs and Ghibelines. The Greeks were 
unreliable, and failed to send their fleet, and though the 
Hospitallers took Bilbeis by assault on November 3rd, 
1 168 A.D., Amaury hastily retreated to his kingdom on 
hearing that Shirkohwas again advancing with a mighty 
army. In the end of the year the Syrians were in Cairo 
and threw off the mask. Saladin, now thirty years of 
age, himself arrested the deceitful Shawer, and by order 
of the Khalif he was beheaded, while Shirkoh succeeded 
* Regesta, No. 452. 



THE LOSS OF THE KINGDOM. 127 

to the dignity of Vizir and of Sultan in Egypt, on 
the iSth January, 1169. He did not long live to enjoy 
his conquest, for on the 23rd March he died of some 
internal complaint, and Saladin was appointed his suc- 
cessor. The jealousy of Nur ed Din was roused, and 
he resumed Shirkoh's fief of Emesa in Syria, and strove 
in the spring to seize Kerak, the key to Egypt and to 
Mecca, which Saladin had already been attacking from 
Egypt. 

Manuel Comnenos, now roused too late, sent in 1170 
a fleet of 150 galleys, with sixty transports and a dozen 
larger vessels to help his son-in-law. With these a final 
effort was made, and Damhtta was besieged.* But 
Saladin held out boldly, and half the Christian army 
perished from famine or in battle before the walls, while 
all the fleet was lost. On the 2ist of December a truce 
was signed, and Amaury left 'for Constantinople return- 
ing later to Jerusalem. Meanwhile a terrible earthquake 
ruined Antioch, and shook the walls of Latakia, Tripoli, 
Emesa, Hamath, and Aleppo. These various disasters 
brought upon the kingdom all the evils that the Tem- 
plars had foreseen. King Amaury in vain had promised 
to the Pisansf all that they owned in Egypt, and in vain 
had sent ambassadors to Europe, including the Bishop of 
Acre and the Masters of the Temple and Hospital. 
They set out in 1169 and were wrecked at sea,| and in 
their stead William of Tyre was then despatched, not 

* Boha ed Din speaks, however, of an attack by sea on Alexandria by 
the Franks in 1174. 
t A'eges/a, No. 467. 
J Regesta, No. 480. 



128 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

only for aid, but to find a husband for the king's 
daughter presumptive heiress of the kingdom, one able 
to defend the state should the unhappy leper heir be 
taken away. 

The star of Saladin was rapidly rising to its culmina- 
tion. He was already called Melek en Nasr, " the 
Conquering King," and began from Egypt to raid upon 
the southern borders of the Latin Kingdom. 

Whatever may have been the intentions of Nur cd 
Din regarding his too successful general, he was unable 
to attack him, for his brother, the Atabek prince of 
Mosul, Kutb ed Din, died on the 6th September, 

1170, and Nur ed Din departed to the Tigris to settle 
the family affairs. He met with opposition, and was 
engaged righting in Mesopotamia till 22nd January, 

1171, when he made a treaty with his nephews, Seif ed 
Din Ghazi, who governed Mosul, and Mmad ed Din of 
Sinjar. It was not till May that Nur ed Din got back 
to Aleppo. 

The Egyptian Khalif El Adid died without an heir 
on 1 3th September, 1171, and Saladin being a strict 
adherent of the Sunnee sect called Shafai, proclaimed the 
Khalif of Baghdad El Mustadi to be the one religious 
head of Islam, he himself remaining Sultan of Egypt* 
The jealousy of Nur ed Din was increased by such a 
policy, and he entered into alliance with one of the 
rival heirs of Thoros of Armenia, The Latins were 
driven for a while out of Armenia and Cilicia, and Nur ed 

* Jacques de Vitry accuses Saladin of killing the Khalif (p. 95, English 
translation). 



THE LOSS OF THE KINGDOM. 129 

Din took Arkah, Besni, and Marash in North Syria, and 
, advanced on Kerak in Moab, where, however, Humphrey 
of Toron defeated him. On May I5th, 1 174 A.D., he died 
at Damascus, the last of the Atabeks to rule in Damascus, 
leaving as successor Melek es Saleh, a boy of fourteen. 
King Amaury no sooner heard of this event than he set 
out to retake Banias, but the Damascus Moslems bought 
him off with gold and by surrender of prisoners ; and 
falling ill of dysentery he too died on the nth of July, 
1174. By this astonishing series of events following 
each other in quick succession, Saladin, who had already 
taken Akabah the seaport of the Franks upon the 
coast of Arabia and had plundered all the plains near 
Ascalon, found himself without a rival, and confronted 
only by a leper king thirteen years of age among the 
Franks, and by a boy, as Sultan of Syria. King 
Amaury 's last letters in the summer of the year 1173 
A.D. were written to Henry the Archbishop of Rheims, 
beseeching him to make a peace between the Kings of 
France and England, that both might come to help the 
Holy Land, and telling how the conquest of Antioch 
was threatened by the Moslems for the following 
Easter.* The death of Nur ed Din prevented such 
attack, but in the following year (1175) Saladin married 
the widow of his former master, and Damascus, Emesa, 
and Hamath welcomed the hero of Islam as their ruler. 
Aleppo only remained to the Atabek princes, and 
Saladin was now the single authority from Hamath to 



130 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Cairo, over all the lands beyond the Jordan and Orontes, 
in Sinai, in Yemen,* and in the Delta. 

Such was the outlook when the leper boy, Baldwin IV, 
ascended to the throne of Amaury, his father. Islam 
was united under a man of genius and experience, 
respected for his orthodoxy and strict observance of 
religious custom, brave and generous, just and courteous 
like a Christian knight, descended from the sturdy 
Kurdish stock, and in the flower of his strength thirty- 
six years of age. And on the side of Christendom was 
a distracted Europe, and a cripple of fourteen ruling a 
seditious state, with Templars and Hospitallers jealous 
of each other, quarrelling with the Church, foreseeing 
clearly what was soon to come, and anxious rather to 
preserve their own broad lands in the shore plains, or far 
north in Syria and Asia Minor, than to prevent th'e loss 
of regions where the king and Church held all the towns, 
or to protect the Holy City from the Saracens. In 1 170 
internal dissensions had also arisen among the Hospital- 
lers themselves. Gisbert, the Grand Master, was excom- 
municated, and Amaury, with some of the brethren in 
council, wrote to Pope Alexander III asking him to 
settle the dispute.f While Christendom was so distracted, 
the name of Saladin was mentioned in prayer in all the 
mosques of Western Asia, Arabia, and Egypt. The 
first concern of Raymond of Tripoli, elected regent to 
advise the leper King a man brave and able but 
harassed by cares and dangers was to make peace with 

* Turan Shah, Saladin's brother, overcame the heretic Abd en Nebi Ibn 
Mahdi in Yemen in 1 174. Boha ed Din. 
t Regesta, No. 480. 



THE LOSS OF THE KINGDOM. 131 

the new Sultan of the Saracens ; and Saladin, not yet 
ready for the conquest of Syria, agreed to make a truce 
which lasted for three years. 

Amid these troubles a new hope arose in a new policy 
advocated by the Pope himself.* The possession of 
Palestine was becoming more and more important to 
the Papacy. Its church was the richest that owned 
obedience to Rome. The capture of Jerusalem had 
greatly increased the Papal power, and hopes were enter- 
tained that all the Eastern churches would be gathered 
to the bosom of the Church of St. Peter. The demands 
made on the Easterns were wisely moderate, and in 
1 1 80 A.D. the Maronites submitted, being allowed to 
keep their married priests for priestly celibacy indeed 
was hardly yet fully established even in the West. 
Great hopes were entertained that the Syrian Jaccbites 
would follow, and active measures were taken to convert 
the Armenians. In 1 170 A.D. a book on the " Procession 
of the Holy Ghost" was sent to Antioch, and received a 
year later.f During the next twenty years the Popes 
all strove to convert the Armenians, and attained to some 
success in the thirteenth century. But Alexander III, 
who was Pope for the unusual space of twenty-two years 
(dying in 1181 A.D.),$ had even wider views; and sought 
for allies against Saladin in countries ruled by Turks and 
Mongols. The Sultans of Iconium belonged to the old 
Seljuk family, and had not even their nationality in 

* Regesta, Nos. 264, 544. 
t Regesta, Nos. 480, 491. 

Under Lucius III (ti8i-ii8j) the Romans were again in violent 
conflict with the Papal party. 



132 THE LA TIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

common with the Kurdish master of Egypt and Syria. 
They were shut in on the west by Greeks, and on the 
east by Armenians ; and the majority perhaps of their 
subjects were Christian, while they themselves were 
thought to be " philosophers," perhaps as belonging to 
the philosophers of Islam, whose influence was wide, but 
hateful to the Sunnee orthodoxy. The Papal attempts, 
by means of letters and missions, were unremitting, and 
aimed at conversion of the Sultans of Iconium. The race 
was no longer purely Turkic ; and to our own times the 
language of the Osmanlis testifies to the many centuries 
of Persian, Arab, and Greek influence upon the stock in 
Asia Minor. As now but one word in ten in the 
Osmanli vocabulary is really Turkish, so in the middle 
ages these Sultans, intermarrying with Greek and 
Armenian, Georgian, and Circassian wives, ruled provinces 
in which perhaps only one in ten of their subjects was 
a Turk. Alexander III wrote to the Sultan of Iconium, 
who had already it appears expressed some interest in 
the Christian creed ; and two years after the triumph of 
Saladin at Hattin, Kihj Arslan of Iconium offered help 
to Frederic Barbarossa.* Yet he was secretly allied to 
Saladin. 

But Alexander III looked even further, and sent a 
letter to Prester John , as King of India in the year 1177 
A.D.f The name of this ruler has become so mingled 
with myths and legends that some detail of explanation 
is required to show why Christians looked so far away 

* Reges'a, No. 544, No'.e and 686. 
t Regesta, No. 54 \. 



THE LOSS OF THE KINGDOM. 133 

for allies who might draw off the energies of Saladin 
,from the doomed Latin Kingdom. Already in 1145 
A.D. the Syrian bishop of Gebal had written to Eugenius 
III about this mysterious Christian Tartar.* His infor- 
mation came perhaps from the Nestorians of Persia, or 
from the Venetian traders on the Oxus. He stated that 
Prester John had conquered the Medes and Persians, 
and was himself descended from one of the Magi who 
came to Bethlehem. According to the famous Syrian 
writer, Bar Hebraeus, the country of Prester John, lying 
north-east of the Turks, had been converted in the 
eleventh century to the Christian faith. In 1150 A.D. a 
letter was shown in Europe, from Prester John to Manuel 
Comnenos and Frederic Barbarossa and every Christian 
Prince, which boasted of the power and riches of his 
empire.! To understand the facts which underlay these 
vague but flattering reports, on which the policy of popes 
and kings was founded for a century or more, we must 
turn to the history of Central Asia during the times of 
which we now are speaking.* 

The map of Ptolemy, about 150 A.D., shows in 
Kashgar above the Pamirs a people called the Khatae. 
When in the seventh century the Nestorian priests. from 
Persia reached Kashgar, the Khatae or Khitai were still 
there, and had become yet more important. They 
tolerated the Eastern Christians, and in the eighth 

* Yule's Marco Polo, I, p. 205. 

t Regesta, 264. 

% Journal Royal Asiatic Society, XIII, II. Do. North China Branch, 
X, pp. 76-108, XIX, Part II, Article 2. Chinese Recorder, Vol. VI and 
Vol. IX. Taylor, Hist, of Alphabet, Vol. I, p. 299. 



134 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

century there were archbishops at Herat and Samar- 
cand and even in China. In the sixth century the 
great wall of China was built to keep the Khitai out ; 
but by 916 A.D. the terrible weapon of Greek fire was 
known among them, and their civilisation had so greatly 
increased, by contact with the Indian Buddhists and 
Persian Nestorians, that they began to be supreme in 
Central Asia. They had already an alphabet, and a 
literature of many thousand volumes, including works 
on medicine ; and they were skilful painters, and had 
arts and knowledge then quite unknown to the Chinese. 
In iioi A.D. they founded the Liao dynasty, which 
lasted till 1125 A.D. in China, when it was overthrown 
by the Kin Tartars. From the tenth to the twelfth 
centuries their power increased ; and their ruler became 
known as the Gur Khan or " universal monarch." They 
entered into close alliance with the Uigurs, and con- 
quered Turkestan in 1128-9 A - D - Even in the eleventh 
century their rule extended south beyond the Oxus. 
Their language shows them to have been of Turko- 
Mongol race ; and, though they tolerated Christians 
and Buddhists, they were not themselves converted, 
and continued to believe in all the myths and super- 
stitions of the Mongol animism. Towards the close 
of the twelfth century, Ung Khan was ruling the Kara 
Khitai, or " Black Chitans," and was in truth a powerful 
monarch who had defeated the Eastern Turks. He is 
said by Rubruquis to have been succeeded by a Nes- 
torian priest, named John, but this is not a certain fact, 
and probably his name of Ung was that which Christians 



THE LOSS OF THE KINGDOM. f 135 

of the West converted into Yohan. His daughter mar- 
( ried the son of Genghiz Khan a Mongol from the 
Altai but with this marriage the power of the Khitai 
passed away. The Altai Mongols fought and conquered 
them, and while the popes were hoping for their aid 
against the Turks, the centre of Asia was plunged in 
civil war, and the last remnants of the race of Prester 
John fled, early in the thirteenth century, to southern 
Siberia and to Manchuria. The tradition of a Christian 
king survived long after ; and its great influence on 
the history of later times we must consider again in 
speaking of the Tartars. But the settlement of the 
vexed Eastern question was brought about, not by 
such shadowy alliances, nor by the efforts of Louis VII, 
or of Guy of Lusignan, but by the wisdom and- valour 
of the English king, Richard Lion Heart. Meanwhile, 
the fortunes of Saladin were ever growing brighter, and 
neither the Papal zeal, nor the efforts of the leper 
king, nor any danger from the Mongols on the east, 
were enough to frustrate his great design of freeing 
Syria for the Moslem, and so uniting Islam under his 
sway. 

In 1174 A.D. Raymond of Tripoli was already free 
from his captivity, and regent of the kingdom. Three 
years later Renaud of Chatillon was ransomed, after 
seventeen years of prison, and in November,* having 
married., his second wife, this " quondam Prince of 
Antioch," as he calls himself, was granting lands as 
Seigneur of Hebron, and of Montreal in Moab. The 

* Regesta, No. 551. 



136 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



dangerous province over Jordan which he boldly held, 
cut off the road to Egypt and Mecca from the Syrians 
of Damascus. But the wisdom and moderation which 
might have made this position valuable to the Christian 
cause, were not to be expected of Renaucl, whose 
adventurous and hostile spirit, embittered by his long 
captivity, led to the final ruin of the kingdom. 

In order to understand the many expeditions of 
Saladin, after he had been received in Damascus on 
2/th November, 1174, it is necessary to remember that 
a successful attack on the Franks could not be made 
while there was danger of an invasion by the Atabek 
cousins of Melek es Saleh, from whom Saladin had 
usurped the rule of nearly all Syria. It must also be 
remembered that communication with Egypt was very 
difficult, while Kerak and Shobek (Montreal) were 
occupied by the Christians. On 26th January, 1175, 
Saladin defeated Ezz ed Din, the younger of the 
Atabek brothers ruling in Mesopotamia, near Hamath ; 
and on the 22nd April, 1176, he defeated Seif ed Din 
Ghazi the elder brother, Prince of Mosul, who had come 
himself to help his cousin Melek es Saleh. This second 
battle also occurred near Hamath, and immediately 
after Saladin overran Northern Syria. Membej fell on 
1 5th May, Ezzaz on 24th June, Aleppo was approached, 
but not taken, and while Saladin was obliged to revisit 
Egypt in October, Melek es Saleh remained its prince. 
His rule appears to have been unsuccessful, and revolts 
had to be quelled at Harenc and other places. He died 
on 22nd November, 1181, leaving his diminished 



THE LOSS OF THE KINGDOM. 137 

possessions to his cousin Ezz ed Din, who had become 
ruler of Mosul on the death of Seif ed Din Ghazi, his 
brother, on 29th June, 1180. 

In 1177 A.D., when the truce with the Franks expired, 
Saladin was in the South, and marched his army 
northwards far past Ascalon, to where the Castle of 
Gezer defended the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, the 
most southern of a group of fortresses, at Toron (Latrun), 
Beit Nuba, Chateau Arnaud, and Mirabel, which stood 
at the foot of the mountains, north of Blanche Garde 
and Beit Jibrin. The terror of his coming caused the 
Latins to rebuild the crumbling walls of Jerusalem, which 
had so long been unneeded ; but victory declared itself 
for Baldwin IV, and the Egyptian army was pursued 
to the " Canebrake of Starlings,"* a marshy spot, which 
seems to have been near the site of Lachish, where the 
Moslems held a fortress in the plains. This repulse 
saved the kingdom for ten years, and Saladin never 
again advanced from Egypt. The frontier on the south 
was strong and easy to hold, for Ascalon was faithful, 
and King Amaury had built in 1 149 A.D. a castle at 
Gaza, which was given to the Templars, who raised the 
beautiful Cathedral of St. John, which still attests their 
wealth and piety preserved as a Moslem mosque.f 

The battle of Gezer was fought on the 25th of 
November, and gave great satisfaction to the Christians. 
A letter of Roger de Moulins, Master of the Hospital, 
announced the victory to Christendom. \ But confidence 

* Itin. Rit. V, ch. XLI. Will. Tyre, Vol. Ill, p. 353, French transla- 
tion. Clermont Ganneau, Recneil, No. 8, pp. 350-391. 
t mil. Tyre, XX, 20. J Re^esta, 264. 



138 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



was not restored, and sales of land to the Military Orders 
became frequent and large in the years that followed. 
As early as 1158 a knight is found selling his property 
to pay his ransom from the Turks, and between 1164 
and 1 1 66 large properties were sold to the canons of 
the Holy Sepulchre and to the Hospital. A year after 
the victory of Gezer, Boemund III of Antioch gave to 
the son of Jocelyn II of Edcssa, lands to the value 
of three thousand bezants, in fief; and many other 
documents attest the general mistrust in presence of the 
power of Saladin.* It is remarkable also that the lands 
acquired were mainly in the seaside plains, which Chris- 
tians held for more than a century after Jerusalem fell. 

Meanwhile, a husband able to defend the kingdom 
was sought for Sibyl, the elder sister of the unhappy 
leper king. William of Tyre had gone to France to 
find him, but the good archbishop was singularly un- 
fortunate in his choice. He had returned during the 
lifetime of King Amaury, bringing with him Stephen, 
son of Thibaut, Count of Blois ; but Stephen, after 
some months spent in scandalous licence in Jerusalem, 
returned to Europe. The choice then fell on William 
of Montferrat, related to the King of France, who came 
in 1178, and died three months after he reached the 
country, leaving Sibyl about to bear a child. A second 
husband was provided for her within a year in Guy of 
Lusignan ; her child Baldwin being declared the heir 
of a kingdom which had as yet only twice descended 
from a father to a son. 

* Regesta, Nos. 335, 409, 416, 420, 425, 426, 555. 



THE LOSS OF THE KINGDOM. 139 



The northern borders of the kingdom were now a 
, source of anxious thought, for Banias was the key to 
Galilee. The Franks had striven to reconquer it, and 
early in the reign of Baldwin IV had raided into the 
lands of Damascus, and from Sidon up to Baalbek. In 
1178 a fortress called Chateau Neuf was built in ten 
months' time, to guard the Jordan bridge south of the 
Huleh Lake. It stood on rising ground an oblong 
fort 420 feet by 200, defended on the east and south 
by the river, and by a ditch on north and west, and had 
four gates and four towers at its corners.* Humphrey 
of Toron, seneschal of the kingdom, was its builder, 
but four years later it was given to Jocelyn, brother 
of Queen Agnes and uncle of Baldwin IV, who 
was appointed seneschal after Humphrey's death, and 
granted many lands in Galilee, extending from Carmel 
to Maron, and from Acre to Jordan. At the same time 
the Castles of Hunin and Safed were strengthened, and 
the Knights Hospitallers bought lands in Galilee, even 
as far east as Tiberias, near which they built the Castle 
of Belvoir in 1182, while, before 1179, the Templars 
had erected the Castle of Belfort between Banias and 
Tyre. A tax, moreover, was imposed upon the kingdom 
generally on money and on lands, on churchmen and 
laymen alike ; and in 1180 a new truce was made with 
Saladin. 

About this time 'Ezz ed Din, Kilij Arslan, the Sultan 
of Iconium who ruled from 1155 to 1192 was allied 

* Will. Tyre, XXII, 22 ; Memoirs of Survey IV. Palestine, Vol. I, 
p. 250 ; Key, Colonies Fraiiqttcs, p. 478 ; Regesta, 587, 588, 608, 614. 



140 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



to Saladin and joined him in 1178 in an attack on Kara 
Hissar in Armenia. His mediation with the Atabek 
princes of Mosul and Sinjar was accepted and peace 
signed with them by Saladin on 2nd October, 1180. In 
1 1 82, however, when Saladin failed in a raid on Beirut 
from Damascus he heard that the Atabeks were nego- 
tiating with the Franks against him. He marched at 
once over the Euphrates, taking Edessa, Rakkah, Nisiba, 
and Saruj. Taking part with Imad ed Din, the third 
of the Atabek brothers, against Ezz ed Din, who had 
occupied Aleppo but exchanged it for Sinjar, which his 
brother found that he preferred, after experience of 
the unruly Syrian emirs, Saladin succeeded in making 
peace once more in November at Mosul. 

But Renaud of Chatillon was busy in the south, and 
broke the truce while Saladin was in the east. 

Ailah, now Akabah, was the Christian port of the Red 
Sea, occupied by Baldwin I in 1116 A.D., and taken by 
Saladin in 1167. It lay east of the head of the gulf 
with palm groves near the shore, and steep mountains 
rising behind. A small fortress in the sea occupied 
what was called the Isle de Graye. The place was a 
station -of the pilgrims on their way to Mecca. This 
town Renaud of Chatillon seized in 1182, and besieged 
the Moslems in the castle, which he failed to take. 
Ships were taken to pieces at Ascalon, and carried by 
the Bedouin over the Sinaitic desert, and launched again 
at Akabah. Five galleys and many smaller boats were 
so collected, and while two remained to aid the siege, 
the rest were sent to harry the Hejaz shores, and went 



THE LOSS OF THE KINGDOM. 141 



even to Aden, burning all the Arab trading vessels, and 
carrying ruin amid their commerce. But Saladin was 
swift to make reprisals, and by his order all Christian 
pilgrims in Egypt, and all vessels wrecked on its coast 
were seized, and he caused ships to be carried on camels 
and rebuilt at Suez, manning them with Moorish sailors. 
On the 2nd March, 1183, the first of Renaud's galleys 
was captured by this fleet.* 

Meanwhile, assisted by the Templars, and with an 
allied force of three hundred Bedouin, Renaud set out 
to march from his sea base at Haura on Medina, in the 
heat of summer. This city, sacred as the burial place 
of Muhammad, lay on the upper plains behind a moun- 
tain range a hundred miles inland. There was little 
water on the way, until the pools of the date gardens 
were reached. The land was bare and rocky, with dark 
desert ranges. The town was guarded by a castle, with 
walls and ditch, and watered by a subterranean aque- 
duct. Yet in this mad and useless enterprise Renaud 
persisted till within a day's march of Medina. Saladin, 
furious at an insult to the faith, sent the Emir Hisham 
ed Din Lulu in pursuit. The ships at Haura were 
burnt, and the retreat of the Christians cut off. The 
Moslem force came up behind, and stormed the 
heights on which the Christians took refuge. The 
greater number were seized and carried in chains to 
Cairo, where fanatics were permitted to torture them 
to death, and two were reserved as human sacrifices 

* Chronicles of Ernoul and Bernard the Treasurer, quoted by Rey, 
Colonies Pratiques, p. 156. 



142 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

and taken to Mecca, where their throats were cut on 
the day of sacrifice in the Valley of Mena. Renaud 
himself escaped by land to Kerak with great difficulty, 
but Saladin never forgave the outrage and the breaking 
of the truce. 

This defeat was not the only adverse event of the year 
to Christians. In the spring Saladin was returning to 
Syria, from Mosul, where by agreement with Imad ed 
Din he became ruler of Aleppo on nth June. He 
occupied Harenc on the Antioch frontier a fortnight 
later, and thus strengthened his position against the 
Latins. He reached Damascus once more on 24th 
August, and prepared to attack Lower Galilee. 

A raid, beginning on 2Qth September, 1183, was 
then pushed across the Jordan up the Valley of Jezreel. 
The Christian forces camped not far from the small fort 
of Fuleh, south of Tabor, which was a post and depot ; 
and fed for several days on fish from the Fountain of 
Tubania, which flowed towards Beisan. The pool still 
bears its ancient name, and still is full of fish, but these 
so small that the hard living of the frontier guard may- 
be imagined, although in numbers the supply is said to 
have been miraculous.* The exact site of this incident 
has remained thus far unknown to writers on the wars 
of Saladin. Failing to surprise the post, Saladin with- 
drew to Tabor and finally to Damascus. 

Saladin had written as early as April, 1182, to 
Frederic Barbarossa acknowledging an envoy.f In 

* William of Tyre, XXII, 27. Boha ed Din. 
t Regesta, 598. 



THE LOSS OF THE KINGDOM. 143 

1183 his brother, Seif ed Din, wrote to Pope Lucius III, 
to say that Saladin's empire stretched from Nineveh to 
Damascus, and warning him to force the Christians who 
obeyed him to keep the peace, if captives were expected 
to be ransomed. Saladin himself also addressed the 
Pope as to the captives, and claimed to reckon the 
exchange of prisoners according to rank, since, while he 
held at Cairo nobles of Christendom, the Christians, as 
he argued, had only captured peasants and low-born 
Moslems.* In October, 1183, he sat down for a while 
before the impregnable walls of Kerak, for Saladin's 
main object now became the defeat of Renaud and the 
opening of the trade route from Damascus to Mecca, 
and to Egypt, by the capture of Kerak and Montreal. 
On the 5th July, 1184, he again left Damascus, and 
reaching Heshbon found the Franks encamped at Wady 
Waleh north of the great stronghold of Oultre Jourdan. 
Saladin came on t to Main, and finally began the siege of 
Kerak on the I3th August. On the 4th September he, 
however, retired, and sending troops to make a sudden 
raid on Nablus and Jenin in central Palestine he was 
back at Damascus within ten days. And here the 
chronicler relates a story which casts a strong light on 
Saladin's chivalrous character, and on the manners of 
the age.f Humphrey, the step-son of Renaud of 
Chatillon, was just married to Isabelle, the half-sister 
of Sibyl and of Baldwin IV, and Renaud sent out to his 
enemy presents of wine and meat to celebrate the 

* Regesta, 626, 635. 

t Evnoul, quoted by Rey, Colonies Franques, p. 20. 



H4 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

wedding. Saladin received the gifts with thanks, and 
asked the messenger which tower of this gloomy desert 
fortress above the Dead Sea cliffs was that in which the 
bride and bridegroom were then living. Having been 
shown the tower he ordered that none in assaulting 
Kerak should shoot upon it or attack. Yet Renaud 
was himself the only Christian to whom Saladin refused 
his life at Hattin. 

While these incursions wasted the kingdom the 
leprosy of Baldwin IV grew more and more painfully 
advanced. The toes and ringers wasted off, the sight 
failed, and the king was unable to move. The general 
dissolution of society was evident in public manners. 
Templars and Hospitallers quarrelled and appealed to 
Rome.* The Patriarch led a life of open sin : drinking 
and dicing and vice disgraced both nobles and knights, 
and William of Tyre laid down his pen in disgust, un- 
willing further to record the annals of the fated kingdom. 
Guy of Lusignan, the new husband of Sibyl, was elected 
regent by the barons, but showed no energy and refused 
to obey the king. His character has been variously 
given, and some declare that he was brave and honest ; 
but of his weakness and incompetence the history of his 
single year of rule seems to give evidence. He neither 
resisted Saladin in Galilee, nor aided Renaud at Kerak, 
but shut the gates of Ascalon, and refused to open them 
even when the helpless and dying Baldwin was carried 
down to claim admission. The regency was given, in 
1184, to Raymond of Tripoli, and Guy disgraced. 
* Regesta, 572. 



THE LOSS OF THE KINGDOM. 145 



Meanwhile, appeals to Europe were fruitless. The 
Pope was driven from Rome, the King of France 
promised no help. Henry II was troubled by the 
coming rebellion of Richard and John his sons, and 
though he promised and prepared to take the Cross 
the vow was unfulfilled. Manuel Comnenos, the ally of 
Amaury, and friend of the Franks, had died, and against 
his weak successors, accused of favouring the Latins, the 
people rose in 1185, and placed Isaac Angelus on the 
Byzantine throne. Two years earlier a terrible massacre 
of Franks had taken place in Byzantium, in which the 
Pope's legate was beheaded. The new emperor entered 
into treaty with Saladin, and opposed later the march 
of Frederic Barbarossa on Antioch. The Patriarch of 
Jerusalem, the Masters of the Temple and Hospital, 
were sent from Palestine as envoys to Europe ; and 
in September, 1184, King Baldwin IV wrote to them, 
while on their way, to tell of the latest raids made 
in the summer by Saladin.* In the next year Hera- 
clius the Patriarch wrote to Frederic Barbarossa the 
Emperor, beseeching instant help ; but he, like others, 
was either unable to leave his dominions, or perhaps 
regarded the alarm as needless.f The kingdom was 
abandoned to its doom, and in the same year, 1185 A.D., 
Baldwin the Leper died, followed a year later by 
Baldwin V, the child of Sibyl! : they were the last 
whose bones were laid beside those of Godfrey under 
Calvary ; and to the danger from without was added 

* Regesta, 638. 

t Kegesta, No. 647. 

J He died at Acre in September, 1186. 



146 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

that of civil war within, between the parties of the two 
half-sisters Sibyl and Isabelle. The barons saw that 
with the rightful heiress Guy, her husband, must be 
taken for king. They called a Council at Nablus, 
refusing to be present at the coronation of Sibyl, which 
the Patriarch and both the Masters of Temple and 
Hospital supported. Renaud of Chatillon was busy 
with intrigues, and the crown was offered to his step-son, 
Humphrey of Toron, as husband of the younger sister. 
But meanwhile, in September, 1186, Sibyl was crowned, 
and gave a second crown to Guy. Humphrey was still 
a youth, unwilling to take so desperate a task upon his 
shoulders. He fled from Nablus by night, and came to 
offer his allegiance to the rightful queen. 

A short respite due to Moslem dissensions occurred 
about this time. The Mosul Atabeks broke the peace, 
and while Saladin was at Kerak, in 1184, an army from 
Mosul was defeated by his forces near Aleppo. He was, 
however, obliged again to turn his steps to the east. On 
the 1 5th April, 1185, he was on the Euphrates, and stayed 
a month at Harran. Reaching Mosul in the hot summer 
he fell ill in July and retreated, but negotiations at length 
resulted in a final peace signed on the 3rd of March, 
1 1 86, and by the 23rd of May Saladin was once more in 
Damascus, and free from any fear of attacks from Mosul. 

The end had come; and Renaud was the cause.* He 

* Boha ed Din says that there was a truce with Saladin at this time. 
It appears to have been made by Raymond of Tripoli in 1186 without the 
consent of King Guy, which may have served as Renaud's excuse. (See 
William of Tyre, XXII, 28 ; Jacques de Vitry, p. 99, English trans- 
lation.) 



THE LOSS OF THE KINGDOM. 147 

seized a caravan of Moslem pilgrims coming from Mecca 
and took them prisoners near Montreal ; and in the 
March of 1187 A.D. Saladin went out again to beleaguer 
his castle. Meanwhile, the unwilling barons were called, 
in the winter time, to join King Guy at the Fountain of 
Sepphoris in Lower Galilee, and Raymond of Tripoli, who 
was then in his Castle of Tiberias, made peace with the 
king. A small advance guard of the Moslem hosts, 
under command of Melek el Afdal, son of Saladin, 
raided as far as Nazareth ; and near Kefr Kenna on the 
ist May met the Masters of the Templars and Hospi- 
tallers advancing from Fuleh in the plain south of Tabor 
with only a hundred and forty knights. Surprised 
or outnumbered the Templars were defeated ; the Grand 
Master escaped ; but Jacques de Maille, the Marshal of 
the Order, was slain, with the Master of the Hospital. 
A holy war had been proclaimed by Saladin throughout 
his empire, and forces came from Egypt, from Arabia, 
and from Mesopotamia. When the defeat of the Templars 
was known to Saladin, he turned his course to join his 
son, and a great army soon reached Tiberias,* while 
Renaud also hastened to the king in Galilee. The 
Patriarch brought the Holy Cross, and fifty knights were 
sent from Antioch. After six months of preparation an 

* The Survey explains much of the topography of Boha ed Din. Thus 
in 1183 Saladin marched from Damascus by Fitdra to Wady Kuseir on 
Fuleh : the former place at the head of the valley being twelve miles east 
of Jordan, and the valley eight miles north of Beisan. In 1187 he crossed 
Jordan by the Jisr es Sidd, immediately south of the Sea of Galilee ; and 
in 1 189 the Diarbekr troops fled by this same bridge to Fik, east of the Sea 
of Galilee, by the plain of Kahwaneh immediately east of the bridge. The 
Arabic text reads Fakhiv&nch, the second dot of the K having been written 
over the H, changing them to F and A'A. 



148 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



army of fifty thousand men, including all the forces of 
the fighting Orders, assembled round the Fountain of 
SefTurieh ; and all the money sent in charge of the 
Templars, by Henry II of England, in preparation for 
his own appearance in Palestine, was given to Guy by 
the Master to pay the troops. Two thousand knights in 
all led with them eight thousand foot-men. The rest 
were Turkopoles, light armed troops, and archers. 

Saladin had, according to Boha ed Din, made a truce 
with Antioch, so that by mutual consent the duel was 
to be fought in the south, and the forces of Aleppo 
were, like the knights of Antioch, set free to join their 
respective chiefs. On the 26th of June the Moslem 
army left Ashtaroth in Bashan, and marching south of 
the Sea of Galilee over the Jordan bridge it ascended 
north-west by Sennabris, leaving Belvoir to the left, and 
reached Hattin on the fourth day. Tiberias was sacked, 
and only the castle held out for Raymond of Tripoli. 

Seffurieh was an unvvalled town; on the low hills north- 
west of Nazareth. The Church of St. Anne stood in its 
midst, and a strong tower on the hill above overlooked 
the brown cornfields, which stretched towards the 
rugged mountain chain of Upper Galilee, and eastwards 
to the plain over Tiberias an open and waterless 
plateau. The Fountain of Seffurieh lay a mile towards 
the south, in an open valley full of gardens, with a 
stream which now drives eight mills, and which, there- 
fore, was sufficient for so large an army as that which 
gathered round King Guy. The surrounding lands also 
were full of villages, and gave ample provisions. 



THE LOSS OF THE KINGDOM. 149 



Saladin's camp was ten miles to the east, upon the 
plateau near the little village of Hattin. The place was 
surrounded with olives and fruit trees, and a good spring 
copious and fresh flowed, on the south-west, into the 
gorge of Wady Hammam, There was plenty of water 
in the valleys beneath, and near Tiberias, where the wife 
of Raymond of Tripoli was shut up in her castle, upon 
the margin of the sacred lake. Just south of Hattin 
rises the dark and rocky hillock, famous in history as 
the " Horns of Hattin," six hundred feet above the 
low-lying village, and overlooking the western plain a 
hundred feet below. The highway from Acre led over 
this plain, and not a single spring or stream of any size 
existed between the camps. It was the hottest season 
of the year, and a long march for infantry divided the 
hosts of Christendom and Islam. 

From the peak of Hattin the watchman looked, 
towards the west, over a sunburnt plain, with long grey 
ridges dotted with bush to north and south. Behind 
him lay the Lake of Galilee seventeen hundred feet 
below, shut in with precipices mirrored in its shining 
waters, with Hermon on the north rising snow-streaked 
over the Valley of the Upper Jordan. Far east the 
craters of the Jaulan ridge stood up against the plains 
which stretch towards Damascus. The towers of Safed 
rose above the northern shores of the lake, and to the 
south the black walls and ditches of Belvoir frowned 
upon the rolling plateau. Defeat in such a position 
meant disaster to the Moslem forces, hurled down the 
slopes and driven into the lake ; but in order to attack, 



150 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

the Christian army must cross the waterless plain, and 
after a long march would find the enemy covering all 
the springs and streams that flow into the lake. 

When we remember that the Franks possessed two 
strong outposts, at Fuleh and at Belvoir ; that an ad- 
vance down the Valley of Jezreel to Beisan could have 
been made without any difficulty as regards plentiful 
supply of water, and that Saladin's position was also 
strategically most dangerous, being at an angle to his 
line of retreat, it appears strange to a soldier that part, 
at least, of the Christian army was not despatched to 
attack the Jordan bridges, and to cut off the Moslem 
retreat, which could then only have been accomplished 
by the northern bridge guarded by the fortress of 
Chateau Neuf. A general like Godfrey would not have 
failed to take so evident a precaution, but probably the 
Franks were afraid of the summer heat in the Jordan 
valley. 

A Council was called by King Guy, upon the night of 
the ist of July, 1187, at Seffurieh, in order to decide the 
fatal question whether a march should now be made 
to raise the siege of Tiberias, or whether to await the 
Moslem onslaught. Raymond of Tripoli was most 
concerned of all, because his wife and children were 
in danger ; but his advice was sound and soldierly. 
" Between this place and Tiberias," he said, " there is no 
water. We shall all die of thirst before we get there." 
But the Templars were burning with shame and anger 
for their recent defeat, and the Master of the Temple 
denounced his counsel as shameful to the army. The 



THE LOSS OF THE KINGDOM. 151 

decision taken was in accordance with the better 
wisdom of Raymond ; but in the night the Master came 
to King Guy's bed, and bade him strike his tents and 
march on Hattin. The weak king yielded,* and the 
barons had but just lain down when suddenly the 
trumpets blew, and in the darkness of the dawn the 
army set forth in silence to its fate. It was a Friday 
morning, the sacred day of Moslems,! the 23rd of Rabia 
eth Thani, or 2nd of July. 

The sun in early hours, and in a treeless plain, is 
more terrible when its rays strike level at the face than 
even in midday when the breeze begins to blow. All 
that long morning the Christians marched, their heavy 
mail heated by the July rays, without water, without 
shade, without daring to halt for food. Raymond of 
Tripoli led the first division, and in the centre the 
bishops of Acre and Lydda bore the wood of the True 
Cross. The Templars came in rear. The light armed 
Turks and Arabs hovered on the flanks, and harassed 
the army with their arrows. They fired the sun-scorched 
grass and stubble, and long tracks of flame swept across 
the plain, and smoke obscured the way, and parched the 
throats of the Christians. In the afternoon they reached 
the village of Lubieh, standing on a limestone ridge, 
with a few olives and fig trees, but without a spring, and 
watered only from cisterns which perhaps were dry. 

* Gerard de Ridford, the Grand Master, had been chosen in 1185, and 
had supported the king at his coronation. 

f Many of Saladin's victories occurred on Friday, a day he chose because 
the dervishes were then praying for his success in all the mosques. Jacques 
de Vitry makes the defeat occur on 4th July (Feast of the Translation of St. 
Martin), not on 3rd. See p. 101, English translation. 



152 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



Nine miles of road they had traversed, and Hattin 
still lay two miles further to the north-east. Furious 
assaults continued to be made upon them, and utterly 
exhausted they halted for the night. They passed that 
night under arms, with smoke and fire around them, 
and saw at dawn the barren plain before them, and 
the enemy holding the springs. Many deserted and 
went out to beg for water from their foes, and one 
of these is said to have brought the news of the dis- 
tress they suffered to Saladin. "Fall on them," he 
said ; " they cannot help themselves : they are dead 
already." 

The battle began at dawn, and the old Turkish tactics 
were repeated. Wherever the knights charged down, 
the horsemen fled, and turned upon them when dis- 
ordered. Templars, Hospitallers, and bowmen fought 
on with desperate courage, but many of the foot-men 
broke their ranks, and cast away their arms, fainting 
with thirst and heat. The Moslem forces fell upon 
them, and half the army was slain, and half was taken 
captive. The leaders, with only an hundred and fifty 
knights, gathered on the Horns of Hattin to protect the 
Cross, and strove to rally the flying army ; but the 
arrows fell thick upon them, and the knights of Ray- 
mond of Tripoli raised the cry of " Sauve qui peut ! " and 
with his few followers, and Balian of Ibelin, he cut his 
way through the Turks, and brought the only remnant 
of the great army safe to Tyre. And so at length 
there were none left to fight, and the survivors of the 
little group on Hattin surrendered to Saladin. Among 



THE LOSS OF THE KINGDOM. 153 

them were King Guy and Amaury his brother,* Odo, 
seigneur of Gebal, Humphrey of Toron, Renaud of 
Chatillon, the Masters of the Temple and the Hospital, 
the Bishop of Lydda, who had lost the Holy Cross. 

Saladin was sitting by the tent, which was being 
hastily pitched, and one by one the captive princes were 
brought before him. King Guy received a cup of iced 
sherbet, and gave it to Renaud of Chatillon. " It is 
thou, not I, who hast given him to drink," said Saladin, 
and all men knew that Renaud's fate was sealed. What 
Moslem could forget the march on Medinah, the capture 
of the Mecca pilgrims, the broken truce? To all but 
Renaud food was given, and when refreshed they were 
brought again to rest in the tent. Then, turning on the 
arch enemy of Islam, Saladin reproached him with his 
cruelty, his insolence, his broken pledges, and offered 
to him the choice of infidels the Koran or the sword. 
But Renaud would not even then renounce his Christian 
faith, and Saladin rose, and the sharp scimitar clove 
Renaud's shoulder, and his head was laid before his 
conqueror's feet in sight of all the princes. Two hun- 
dred knights of the Temple and Hospital all that were 
taken also were beheaded, as being priests of Chris- 
tendom; but the king and Humphrey, with the other 
nobles, were treated with courtesy, and taken prisoners 



* Boha ed Din calls King Guy Geoffrey, and his brother Guy. Ibn el 
Athir calls the brother Geoffrey. Ernoul, and Raoul Coggeshale (who was 
present at the battle), speak of the brother being captured, and Ernoul calls 
him Amaury, constable of Jerusalem. Jacques de Vitry, who mentions 
both Geoffrey and Amaury, speaks of the former as with King Guy at Acre 
in 1189 (pp. 107, 117, English translation). 

M 



154 THE- LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

to Damascus.* The Castle of Tiberias surrendered the 
following day, and Raymond's wife departed to join her 
husband at Tyre. The fragments of the Cross en- 
cased in gold and adorned with precious stones were 
also brought to Saladin, and held, like the princes, to 
ransom. 

Such was the fatal battle of Hattin, in which the Latin . 
Kingdom of Jerusalem was lost. The cry of treachery 
was raised as soon as the astounding news was sent 
to Europe treachery of the Templars in advising the 
march, treachery of Raymond in counselling a halt at 
Lubieh, and in leaving the field. But the latter did 
good service afterwards at Tyre, and the Templars, after 
all, were only too eager to fight. A great mistake had 
been made, and the blame lay equally on King and 
Council ; but that any among the leaders meant, to sell 
the victory to Saladin is most unlikely. Many another 
battle has so been lost, when the defenders fought on 
their own ground, against a wearied and disorganised 
assailant. 

Six months of the year remained in which to push 
yet further the victory, and to take Jerusalem before the 
news could bring a new Crusade from Europe. Letters 
were speeding to the West, from the princes and the 
barons, from the Templars and Hospitallers, from Ray- 
mond of Tripoli, and Conrad of Montferrat, and Boe- 
mund III of Antioch, to the Pisans promising new 
concessions, to Pope Urban III, to Frederic Barbarossa, 
to Henry II of England, to Philip II of France, and 
* Bohaecl Din. 



THE LOSS OF THE KINGDOM. 155 

even to Bela of Hungary. They told of defeat and loss 
' of cities, but that Tyre and Tripoli and Antioch still 
held out, and many other castles.* The news aroused 
the whole of Europe. The Popef made peace between 
the Genoese and Pisans, and Frederic wrote to Saladin 
to say that he was coming. Not a moment was to be 
lost, and the series of military movements that followed 
was astonishing for rapid execution. Acre opened its 
gates within five days of the victory. In three weeks' 
time the strong castle of Toron, in Upper Galilee, surren- 
dered to Saladin. The Egyptian army occupied Jaff i 
and Mejdel Yaba. Haifa, Caesarea, and Arsuf, Nazareth, 
Sebastieh, and Nablus, submitted to detachments sent 
against them. The forts south of Seffurieh (which was 
found deserted) were occupied, including Fuleh and 
Deburieh, Lejjun, and Beisan. From Toron Saladin 
marched to Sidon and took it, after subduing Sarafend. 
Within a month the walls of Beirut were mined, and it 
capitulated on the 8th of August. Gebal was given up 
to a Moslem force a week later, as ransom for Odo its 
seigneur ; and Humphrey of Toron was given to his 
mother, in exchange for Kerak and Shobek, where, how- 
ever, the garrisons refused to carry out her compact. 
Saladin next marched south, taking Ramleh, Yebnah, 
and Darum south of Gaza, and besieging Ascalon, 
which refused to open its gates till, after fourteen days, 
King Guy himself gave the command to the defenders 

* Regesta, Nos. 658-670. 

t Matters were complicated by the death of Pope Urban III October 
nth, 1187 ; Gregory VIII died December i?th of the same year ; Clement 
III died March 27th, 1191. 

M 2 



156 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

and on the 6th of September it passed again into the 
hands of Moslems.* Meanwhile Gaza, Beit Jibrin, and 
Latrun fell before detachments of the army of Islam. 

On the 2oth of September Saladin appeared before 
the west gate of Jerusalem, and swore to take the city 
by assault ; he fixed his camp on the north at the east 
angle of the wall. Balian of Ibelin, who had escaped 
with Raymond, had gone there under safe conduct to 
fetch his wife, but yielded to the prayers of some twenty 
thousand Christians, left without a leader, and who had 
fled from all the country round ; and so he stayed to 
hold the city. He made fifty knights for all the men 
of war had gone to Hattin and paid them with treasure 
of the Hospital, and with the silver stripped from the 
Holy Sepulchre. Saladin offered a truce, and even to 
pay for entry to the city, but Balian refused. The 
walls were mined : the countermines of the Christians 
failed ; and on the following day a breach was made 
and occupied. But the assailants were driven back, and 
an agreement for capitulation was signed on the 2nd of 
October. The ransom was fixed at 10 for each man, 
and ^3 for every woman and child, and $os. for the 
poor ; but this was afterwards halved, and many were 
set free by Seif ed Din, or given to Balian, or set at 
liberty by Saladin. Queen Sibyl and her sister were 
allowed to leave unransomed, and all the exiles were 
conducted safely to Tripoli, where, however, Raymond 
refused to add them to the numbers he must feed in case 
of siege. There was no massacre, no plundering, no 

* Boha ed Din. 



THE LOSS OF THE KINGDOM. 157 

violence. The entry of Saladin was like that of Omar, 
rather than that of Godfrey. 

On the 1st of October the Moslems entered the Holy 
City, and on the Friday following a sermon was preached 
in the Temple enclosure before Saladin, and the Haram 
was purified and became again a mosque. The great 
gold cross was dragged from off the roof of the Dome 
of the Rock : the walls which the Templars had built 
before its mi/irabs, or ancient Moslem prayer niches, 
were taken down. The images and altars were removed : 
the carved faces on the pillar capitals, and the crosses, 
were hammered out. The pictures on the walls were de- 
faced or covered over. The whole building was washed 
and sprinkled with rose water ; and carpets were laid> 
and lamps hung up, and a beautiful wooden pulpit still 
remaining was sent from Damascus* ; and two years 
later the woodwork of the Dome of the Rock was re- 
painted, and the proud titles of Yusef, son of Eyub, 
Salah-ed-din, were written round it. Thus soberly and 
mercifully the greatest of the Moslems reaped the fruits 
of his victory. 

The reconquest of Jerusalem on the very night when 
the Prophet was believed to have ascended . thence to 
heaven sent a thrill of joy through Islam. Dervishes 
and Ulema hastened to visit the second holy city of 
the Faith so long closed to them by the Christians. All 
such learned and pious men Saladin received with 



* This mimb&r bears the date 1168, with the names of Nur-ed-Dm and 
his son Melek es Saleh, and was made, as it records, by Hamed ben Thafir 
of Aleppo. 



158 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

honour, giving them costly gifts, and establishing them 
in the ancient Haram of the first Syrian Khalifs. 

Meanwhile, the army of Islam gathered against Tyre, 
where Conrad of Montferrat was holding out, having 
escaped from Acre, whither he had come by sea, not 
knowing of the victory at Hattin. On the 3Oth of 
December the first turn in the tide of success was 
witnessed by the conqueror at Tyre, for Saladin's fleet 
was utterly destroyed by Christian ships off the harbour ; 
and winter coming on the siege was raised four days 
later. Hunin, one of the chief fortresses of Upper Galilee, 
had fallen on 26th December, and early next year the 
Moslem army, which had suffered much from cold and 
snow, appeared before Belvoir, south-west of Tiberias. 
It was, however, found too strong to be taken, and the 
siege was raised on the I2th March, 1188. On the loth 
of May the untiring Sultan was again in the field, to 
join new forces coming from the east. He left Damascus, 
and by Baalbek and Lebweh made forced marches 
without baggage, taking Latakia and Gabala, Saone and 
other places further north ; but finding Antioch strong 
and well prepared, he granted a truce to its defenders 
for seven months.* Leaving his northern army, and 
joined by his brother, who had just succeeded in taking 
Kerak in October, Saladin next besieged the Hospitallers' 
fortress of Safed in Upper Galilee, which was surren- 



* Boha ed Din gives the following dates : Tortosa stormed 3rd July, 
1188; Gabala, i6th; Latakia, 22nd ; iraone, agth; Bekas (on the Orontes), 
5th August ; Shoghr, I2th ; Sermanaya, igih ; Berzieh, 23rd ; Durbessac, 
i6th September ; Baghras, near Antioch, 26th. Margat (Merkeb), the: 
castle of the Hospitallers, escaped (Abu el Feda, ch. 29). 



THE LOSS OF THE KINGDOM. 159 

dered on the 6th December. Belvoir, south of Tiberias, 
held out till 5th January, 1 189 A.D. ; Shobek (Montreal) 
resisted till May of the same year, and Belfort on the 
mountains north-west of Banias, negotiated for a twelve- 
month, and only yielded on 3rd May, 1190.* Thus, in 
less than three years of rapid movement, the whole 
of Palestine and of Syria, which had been won in 
sixty years, fell before Salad in ; and only Tyre, and 
Tripoli, and Antioch remained in Christian hands. 
When we remember that Saladin was fifty years old 
at the time of the battle of Hattin, and had been actively 
employed for twenty years ; that he had been very ill 
in Harran in 1185, and suffered from exposure fluring 
the winter campaigns, we cannot but marvel at his 
energy. His dominions in Syria stretched five hundred 
miles north and south ; and from Aleppo to Mosul was 
a distance of three hundred and fifty miles. Yet we find 
him constantly traversing his dominions by bad roads, on 
horseback, in heat and cold, east wind or mud, taking 
but a few days' rest in Damascus or Aleppo, and always 
present at the important point, whether at Mosul or 
Kerak, Cairo or Tyre. We can hardly wonder that he 
died six years after the conquest of Jerusalem worn out 
by care and hardship. His last success at Belfort marks 

* The Lord of Belfort diplomatised and gained much time, professing 
to be willing to surrender. He thus kept Sakdin employed, and relieved 
the pressure on Tyre, and assisted the landing of forces at Acre ; but he 
was arrested on 22nd July, 1 189, and taken to Banias. The defenders then 
refused to carry cut his agreement for surrender. Belfort was a Templar 
castle, and this chatelain is said to have been a very able man, who could 
speak Arabic and had studied Moslem books. He discussed questions of 
religion with the besiegers " with great- moderation and courtesy.'' Boha 
ed Din. 



160 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

the end of the first age of Latin rule in Syria, and the 
culmination of his power in the East, just ninety years ' 
after Godfrey's death. The story of the thirteenth 
century which follows belongs to another order of events. 
The third Crusade was being already prepared, and its 
results settled the Eastern question for a hundred 
years. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE, 

FROM the preceding account it will be seen that the 
Latins in Syria enjoyed, for nearly a century, an amount 
of peace and prosperity greater than that of most 
European lands during the same period, and that often 
for many years they were untroubled by war, while for 
the first sixty their contests were all on the boundaries 
of the kingdom, which were ever growing wider and 
stronger. We may therefore now consider the daily life 
that they led in the East ; and afterwards the condition of 
their native subjects, Christian or Moslem. The picture 
so presented also, in part, applies to the conditions of the 
thirteenth century, after the Eastern question had been 
settled by agreement between King Richard and Saladin. 
In two main features there was a difference between the 
two periods namely, in the ownership and organisation 
of the country, and in the increased trade, which made 
the later merchant population more important. As 
regards the nobles and the lower classes the habits of 
life remained but little changed, excepting in regard to 
increased education, and better understanding of the 
East. 



1 62 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

The organisation of the kingdom, with its great fiefs 
of Tripoli, Antioch, and Edessa ; its four chief baronies 
of Jaffa, Hebron, Galilee, and Montreal; and its lesser 
seigneuries of Darum, Arsuf, Caymont, Caesarea, Beisan, 
Sidon, Beirut, Toron, Maron, Suethe, St. George, and 
Haifa, has been already described,* with the boundaries 
dividing these from the lands of Damascus and Aleppo, 
owned by Turkish sultans. The same feudal organisa- 
tion which bound the provinces to the Royal Domain 
also regulated the holdings of the knights, in the sub- 
ordinate divisions of the country, and in part controlled 
the trading communes in the seaport cities, save in so 
far as self-government was granted, by their charters 
to the Genoese and Pisans, Venetians, Marseilleise, and 
merchants of Amalfi. 

Each of the greater vassals had a court with officers 
like those of the king a constable, a marshal, a baillie 
(or treasurer), a seneschal, a grand butler, and a chancellor. 
Each prince had his chamberlain, each castle its chate- 
lain. The great Orders also had their various officers 
under the Grand Masters ; and under the Viscount or 
president of the Court of Burgesses were officials with 
native titles, and dragomans or interpreters. The 
trading communities had their consuls responsible to the 
home authorities ; and the jurisdiction of the Church was 
organised under the Latin patriarchs of Antioch and 

* Jacques de Vitry (p. 26, English translation) speaks of Jerusalem, 
Acre, and Tyre as directly under the king, and enumerates the chief 
vassals as' including the Count of Tripoli, the lords of Beirut, Sidon, 
Haifa, and Caesarea, the Prince of Galilee and Tiberias, the Count of 
Jaffa and Ascalon, the Lord of Montreal (beyond Jordan), and the lords of 
Arsuf and Ibelin. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 163 

Jerusalem. The smaller fiefs in towns and villages 
owed to the barons military service according to their 
size and value ; and rendered to their owners certain 
shares of produce, and a certain number of horses and 
mules. The land was divided into carucates, which 
might be separately sold ; and by their number the 
values were assessed.* Thus John of Margat's fief was 
valued at two hundred bezants and fifty measures of 
wheat, twenty of barley, ten of lentils, and fifty of oil. 
He furnished four horses in time of need. Eudes of 
Seleucia owed two hundred bezants, fifty measures of 
wheat, one hundred of barley, five of lentils, and fifty of 
oil, also providing four horses. John of Arsuf was 
valued at five hundred bezants, bringing the same num- 
ber of horses ; and John of Beit Jibrin at three hundred 
and fifty bezants, and the produce of two carucates, for 
the same service. Three pack animals were equal to two 
horses ; and smaller owners, not being knights, provided 
each his beast when following his lord. The seigneur 
in return provided sustenance for his knights, and through 
them for their followers, in a degree which' was to the 
less wealthy seigneurs often a terrible burden : his own 
income was derived from customs and rents, but these 
left not less than half the produce of the soil in the 
hands of the Moslem peasants. The duties as well as 
the rights of property were fully understood by these 
great seigneurs, living on their lands amid their people, 
defending and guiding them in times of war, doing 

* Codex Diplom., I, p. 171, quoted by Rey, Colonies Franques, p. z\. 
The bezant was from about seven to eight shillings. 



1 64 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

justice in times of peace, and helping the poor and unfor- 
tunate in times of famine, earthquake, or locust visita- 
tions. In States that were small and thinly peopled, in 
days of war and ignorance, while trades and profes- 
sions were yet in their infancy, the feudal system was a 
blessing to the people, holding them together with a 
strong hand, under experienced rulers trained from 
childhood to their duties. Tyranny, in Syria at least, 
was checked by laws which were common to every 
province : liberty was protected by courts and juries ; 
and public opinion demanded from the seigneur a 
generosity and justice, a courtesy and kindness, which 
were part of the religion of a gentle born knight, whose 
fair name was the patent of his rank. No doubt this 
character for upright dealing was lost in the last years 
of social dissolution ; but under kings like Godfrey and 
his brother, Baldwin du Bourg, and Fulk of Anjou, the 
example set from above seems very generally to have 
been followed ; and most of the barons and seigneurs 
were respected for their courage and firmness, and loved 
for their justice and kind courtesy. Some of the deeds 
by which the fiefs were held* describe the boundaries 
with completeness, running from some fixed point 
a tree, a cave, a rock marked with crosses and they 
stipulate that the holder shall himself appear " whenever 
the king orders out the army." Some fiefs only owed 
a single knight out of a village. In the agreements 
with communes it was stipulated that murder and 
homicide, treason and theft, were cases only to be judged 

* Kegesta, Nus. 341, 499, 517, 680. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 165 

by the king or by his courts. The levying of forces, and 
equality of law, were thus made equally simple, through 
a self-acting system of tenure. Joynville informed St. 
Louis that the maintenance of a single knight, with those 
who followed with him to the war, amounted to four 
hundred livres for six months, with double that sum for 
his own equipment with horses and armour, and to keep 
"a table for my knights."* 

The population of the country was very much 
mingled, including elements from many parts of Europe 
and Asia. In the middle period it included! Latins 
and Germans, Hungarians / Scots, Navarrese, Bretons, 
English, Franks, Ruthenians, Bohemians, Greeks, 
Bulgarians, Georgians, Armenians, Syrians, Nestorians 
from Persia, Indians, Egyptians, Copts, Maronites, and 
people of the Delta. The ruling race was Norman, 
Italian, Frank, and Provencal, with knights from Lor- 
raine and Auvcrgne, Burgundy and France. The 
Germans were less numerous, most of them having 
returned after the first Crusade. The English were few, 
though Queen Theodora gave a house to an English- 
man in Jerusalem as early as 1161 A.D. In the next 
century poor English pilgrims became so numerous as 
to need a special home of refuge, in the "English Street" 
of AcreJ ; but we hear little of those Saxons who came 
with Edgar the Atheling. In the second generation 
intermarriage with natives began to be common, and even 
from the first the Norman princes took Armenian wives. 

* Joynville in Bohn's Chronicles of the Crusades, p. 468. 
t John of IViirzburg, ch. xiii and xxviii. English translation, p. 41 and 
p. 69. Kegesta, Nos. 367, 1216. 



166 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



The native language of Palestine was an Arabic 
dialect of Aramean character ; and Syriac the tongue 
of native Christians some centuries earlier was still 
spoken in the North. Turkish was a foreign speech, 
little known ; but Greek, which had for a thousand years 
been the official and commercial tongue of Western 
Asia, was also commonly spoken by the townsmen. 
The language of Law and of the Church among the 
Franks was mediaeval Latin, full of words taken from 
the Italian, the French, and the German tongues. In 
time also many Arabic words were incorporated, and 
others that were Greek, or that came from the Greek 
through an Arab medium.* A curious instance is the 
\vordfondacum for a town hall, derived from the Arabic 
funduk, which was but a corruption of the Greek Pan- 
dokeion, " an inn." The names of weights and measures 
and coins used by the natives were in like manner 
Greek in origin, but adopted under their Arabic forms 
by the Latins. The Latins called a fowl market soqucd- 
dik, from the Arab Suk ed Dik, "market of the cock" ; 
and many similar instances might be given, out of 
a vocabulary of some two hundred spurious terms, 
occurring in chronicles, letters, and deeds of the age, 
which mark the peculiar character of Crusaders' Latin. 

The common tongue of the knights and nobles was, 
however, the ancient Norman-French, something of 
which may still be heard spoken in Guernsey. It was 
a vigorous and terse idiom, preserved to us in some of 
the chronicles and pilgrim diaries, in the Chanson du 

* See Rohricht's Glossarium in the Regesta, pp. 513-516. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. : 67 

Voyage de Charlemagne (about 1075 A.D.), and in 
similar lays and gestes. Many Arabic .words found 
their way into the speech of the ruling race, converted 
.into strange shapes by Norman tongues. But Arabic 
itself was gradually acquired by the more polished 
seigneurs, and the names of villages and castles are 
often Norman translations of the native titles. It is 
remarkable to note that the speech of the conquerors 
has left no impression on the language of those whom 
they ruled so long. The only Crusaders whose memory 
still lingers in Palestine, are Raymond of St. Gilles 
(Sinjify Baldwin \Bardawil\ and King Richard Lion 
Heart (Melek Rils) : the few traces of the Lingua 
Franca, or trading patois, which survive, are found in 
Italian words, taken perhaps much later than the 
twelfth century from the merchants of the coast. 
Greek, Persian, and Turkish have tinged the speech of 
the modern peasantry far more than Norman French, 
or Latin, though even these foreign elements are still 
comparatively insignificant. On the other hand, the 
languages of the West were greatly influenced by contact 
not only with the Moors, but with the natives of Syria. 
When we remember such words in English* as azimuth, 
nadir, admiral, elixir, shrub, sofa, amulet, chemise, sar- 
cenet, artichoke, alcove, magazine, alcohol, cipher, lute, 
mattress, mohair, camlet, and saffron, to say nothing 
of terms denoting Eastern dignities or customs, 
we perceive the influence of Arab trade and 
civilisation and science upon the Western mind. The 

* Skeat, Etymological Diet. English Language, p. 760. 



i63 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

mingling of so many nations, the knowledge gained of 
so many religions, and habits of thought, strange to the 
West, hastened the advance of European culture. It 
was Europe, not Asia, which profited most in the end, 
and the result of the Crusades was the Renaissance. 
The Turks had little or no part in the education of the 
Latins. No Turkish words found place in their daily 
speech ; and the Seljuks themselves fell under the same 
great spell of an ancient civilisation, which was Greek 
and Persian and Arab in its origin. 

The influence on the Latins of their Syrian education 
was not less remarkable in questions of religion. To 
the first Crusaders there was but one true Faith that 
which the Normans had accepted under Rollo, and of 
which the Pope, as spiritual ruler of Europe, was the 
head. They supposed that the Saracens (S/iarkiytn, or 
" Easterns ") were idolaters adoring a mummy image 
called Baphomet or Mahound : it took many years to 
convince them generally that the Moslem worshipped 
only One God, and that the Koran taught, in Muham- 
mad's own words, that he v/as an " unlearned prophet " 
from among his Arab brethren. Yet within a very few 
years their princes were making alliances with Moslems ; 
and after Hattfn the very Master of the Temple a 
tonsured monk was suspected not only of treachery, 
but even of apostasy. Moslem philosophy attracted 
many, and renegades began to be numerous. 

Moreover, the Eastern churches were found to steadily 
deny the Papal claims, and to represent themselves as 
more ancient in foundation and orthodox in tenets 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 169 

than any western church. They said that Peter never 
went to Rome, that Cyprian withstood the Papal claims 
to authority in Africa, and that Chrysostom wrote to 
Innocent only as to a bishop of the West. The Latins 
learned that nearly all the fathers were Syrians or 
African bishops, and that the memory of Origen and 
Chrysostom, of Cyril and Basil, of Athanasius and 
Gregory represented greater traditions than those of the 
West. They found that Jerome had fled disgusted 
from the court of Damasus, and had been the first to 
call the city of the Popes the " Scarlet Woman." The 
influence of learned priests and monks of the Jacobite 
church was strongly felt by the more enquiring Normans, 
while the ignorance and bad conduct of many of their 
own Latin clergy destroyed their authority. King 
Amaury distressed the good and able William, Arch- 
bishop of Tyre, by asking for proof of immortality 
outside the Scriptures. The answer, we are told, was 
after " the Socratic method." No doubt the arguments 
found in the Phaedo and the Crito are those intended. 

Nevertheless the piety of the nobles was deep and 
unquestioning as a rule, and the gifts to the Church 
were numerous. They included oil and wine, and lamps 
to burn forever before the Cross and the Sepulchre 
and Calvary, and wax for candles, and incense. Even 
the whole of a man's property was bequeathed after his 
death to some church, and the prayers asked in return 
were for father or brother, wife or child, who had died, 
or for the soul of the pious donor himself.* Some of 
* Regesta, Nos. 161, 209, 348, 494, 656, 809. 

N 



?7o THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

these gifts were the issue of vows, if God were pleased 
to grant new conquests such as that of Ascalon ; but it 
is suggestive that the existing documents recording 
them belong, for the most part, to the earlier years of 
Latin rule.* Yet the belief that the world was " waxing 
old" survived even in King Richard's time.f In the 
middle of the thirteenth century the Western clergy 
complained to St. Louis that no notice was taken of 
excommunication, suggesting as a remedy the seizure 
of the property of the offenders. This the just king 
refused ; and Queen Blanche, his mother, protected 
peasants against priestly tyrants, although the same 
good king refused even to speak to a renegade. Some 
bishops were found who would absolve men even from 
the Patriarch's ban ; and the Knights Hospitallers, on 
whose land none but the Pope could lay an interdict, 
protected those whom their bishops had cursed. More- 
over, it mattered little to a knight or noble, whose 
peasantry were Moslem, whether an interdict was pro- 
claimed or no, because it did not touch his powers, or 
interfere with his income. The Church waxed rich, and 
the good fathers received wine and tithes down to the 
very year of Hattin ; but the yoke of their authority 
was broken in the East. 

The earlier Normans were ignorant and superstitious. 
We hear nothing of books bequeathed or bought, but 
the Chronicles are full of appearances of saints and 
angels not indeed within the writer's own experience, 

* Regesta, Nos. 113, 141, 342. 

t Jeoff. De Vinsauf, II, 5. Joynville (Bohn's Chron. of Crusades), 
PP. 365. 489j 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 171 

but in the days of an earlier generation of which he 
speaks. Many of the pilgrim diaries are written by 
ignorant monks, and notice superstitions of the age 
common to East and West, such as the " Egyptian," or 
unlucky days for setting sail,* and the half-eaten fishes 
which the Saviour threw into the Sea of Galilee, where 
they still swam alive, and the holy oil of the Sardenai 
image, and the ambrosial liquor of St. Catherine's tomb 
on Sinai.f Legends from the Apocryphal Gospels, and 
from the lives of the saints, were firmly credited, and 
relics devoutly reverenced. The Rock of Calvary was 
covered with the crosses brought by pilgrims,^ and the 
Patriarch sent a fragment of the True Cross to Germany, 
to be adored by all who were too weak or poor to travel 
to Jerusalem. Relics were also eagerly demanded from 
the Holy Land, including remains of St. Thaddeus, and 
of the mythical King Abgar, from Edessa.|| In the 
thirteenth century, on the other hand, the relics came 
from West to East. The arm of St. Philip was sent to 
Acre in 1268 A.D. from Florence,1F where it had been 
adored for sixty years ; and English soldiers were pro- 
tected, in King Richard's time, by " a certain writing 
hanging from the neck,"** better than by the coat of 
mail, or thick pourpoint beneath. The natural history of 
Palestine was well known in the thirteenth century, but 

* Saewulf, English translation, p. 2. 

+ Erttoul, English translation, pp. 45, 47, 55. 

J Theodorich, English translation, p. 20. 

Regesta, No. 317. 

|| Ditto, Nos. 99, 103. 
IT Ditto, Nos. 1361, 1365. 
** Jeoff. de Vinsauf, I. 40. 

N 2 



172 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

in 1 1 30 A.D. it was believed that no bird was able to fly 
across the Dead Sea.* 

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the Latin rule 
was the great Code of laws, framed to meet the peculiar 
conditions of the Syrian government. The Assizes of 
Jerusalem,t as now extant, belong to the thirteenth cen- 
tury, and were edited by John d'lbelin for the new 
kingdom of Cyprus ; but the core of the Code is of much 
earlier date, and was founded on the Letters of the 
Sepulchre, drawn up by Godfrey himself. The basis of 
these laws was found in Justinian's Code, and they pre- 
sented features as yet quite unknown in Europe, espe- 
cially in their careful provision of justice for the bourgeois 
and the peasant, and for the trading communes whose 
fleets were so necessary to the king. Three courts 
existed for nobles, burghers, and villeins respectively. 
Over the first, or High Court, the king presided, aided 
by judges chosen from the liege knights, and before the 
king and his assessors, barons and knights were judged. 
The Court of Burgesses, to judge the townsmen and 
Franks not of gentle birth, was under a Viscount 
appointed by the king, but with a jury of citizens, who 
did judgment upon all freemen of their own rank, or 
even upon knights who chose to come before it. Over 
these burgesses the High Court had no control. The 
third, or Native Court, was under a reiyis, or native 
" head," with a council or jury of twelve natives 
modelled on the village mejlis surviving to our own 

* Fetellus, English translation, p. 12. 

t Beugnot's edition, Paris, 1841, 1842, 2 Vols. folio. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 173 

times. The native customs were administered to the 
villeins, or peasants bound to the soil, who, like serfs in 
the West, were sold with the property. The only cases 
reserved were blood feuds, murder, and other crimes of 
violence, and the same reservations governed the com- 
munal rights. In later times this court was changed, 
because it would seem the corruption, never rooted out 
of Oriental tribunals, increased under the reiyis. In its 
place the Cour de la Fonde was constituted, under its 
baillie, mainly for commercial cases. The jury then 
included four Syrians and two Franks. The Court of 
the Chain was, in fact, the Custom-house, named from 
the chains which closed the mouths of harbours like 
Acre, Sidon, or Tyre.* In spite of many immunities the 
Customs appear to have been an important source of 
revenue to the State. The regulations of the markets 
were under an official called a mathessep, from the 
Arabic matahaseb or " accountant." He had charge of 
the standard weights and measures, inspected streets and 
bazaars, and regulated the trade of bakers, butchers, 
cooks, and corn merchants, dealers in fried fish, in pastry, 
in butter, oil, and in various drinks, and also the native 
schools, the native doctors, oculists, and chemists, the 
horse surgeons, grocers, money changers, and hawkers, 
the cloth merchants, tanners, shoemakers, goldsmiths, 
blacksmiths, and tinsmiths, the slave market, and the 
market for horses and mules.f 

An Arab writer has described the Custom-house of 

* Benjamin of Tudela (Bonn's Early Trawls in Palestine, p. 80). 
f Rey, Colonies Franques, p. 63. 



174 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Acre about 1 1 84 A.D.,* under its native title of diwan 
whence the French " douane.' : The scribes, assisting 
the farmer of the Customs, though Franks, could write 
and speak in Arabic. The baggage of travellers was 
examined, and the imports of merchants taxed according 
to regulation. The caravans paid certain imposts for 
safe conduct, and posts were garrisoned along the roads 
to levy these, with bars or turnpikes closing the way in 
certain defiles. The tariff of the Templars in Armenia 
in the thirteenth century is still preserved. 

The right of anchorage in harbours and roadsteads was 
also paid for ; but the main revenue was raised from capi- 
tation taxes on the Moslems, on the Jews, and even on 
the Syrian Christians. Baldwin II took off, at the Patri- 
arch's request, a tax from which the pilgrims suffered at the 
Jerusalem gates, for all who brought in corn and vege- 
tables ; but this, apparently, still was levied on others 
who were not pilgrims.f The privileges of free trade, 
granted to the Italian cities, were thus of very high 
advantage in a country full of local imposts. All this great 
system fell to pieces at Hattin, and Joynville commends 
Sir Gautier de Brienne because " he kept possession of 
his county of Jaffa for many years, although continually 
attacked by the Egyptians, and without enjoying any 
revenues but what he gained in his incursions against the 
Saracens."J 

The dress of the Franks was not less influenced than 
were their manners by living in the East. The armour 

* Key, Colonies Franques, p. 258, quoting Ibn Jobeir. 

t Regesta, 91. 

: Bohn's Chronicles of the Crusades, p. 488. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 175 

of Crusaders we still find sculptured on monuments of 
our own country. It consisted of the hauberk, or coat 
of chain-mail, with leggings of the same, and iron shoes, 
and a hood of mail or a round cap, often with a nose 
piece, and a neck piece of mail. The hauberk came to 
the knees, and was divided into tails behind for riding, and 
under it was worn the gambison, bliaud, or pourpoint, 
which is described as " a tunic of many folds of linen 
difficult to pierce, and artfully worked with the needle " :* 
it is also said to have been stuffed with wool soaked in 
vinegar, which was believed to resist iron, and similar 
quilted protection was also worn by Saracensf under the 
Persian name of kJiazagand. Scale armour was worn in 
King Richard's time,! and the helmet became gradually 
pot-shaped, covering the face with bars, as shewn on the 
seal of John d'Ibelin. The shield was of wood covered 
with leather and braced with iron, some two feet in length, 
with a point ; and on this the arms of the knight were 
painted. The mail was covered with a robe of linen or 
of silk such as that of the Templars white with a red 
cross and the horses were also protected from heat 
and flies by similar coverings, and even with mail. The 
cuirasse and greaves, with other pieces of plate armour, 
did not appear till late in the thirteenth century. 

The bearing of blazons began in Syria during the 
Crusades, and appeared among Turks and Latins alike. 
It was no doubt as necessary for the knight, who could 

* Jeffrey de Vinsauf, I, 49. 

t Joynville (Bohn's Chron. of Crusades, p. 487), and Boha ed Din. 

J feoffrey de Vinsauf, III, 5. 

Rey, Colonies Franques, pp. 28, 29. 



176 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



not speak the native tongue, and whose face was hidden, 
to bear some distinguishing mark by which his followers 
especially the natives might know him, as it is neces- 
sary even now to make use of uniforms and badges. The 
antiquity of a coat of arms is shewn by its simplicity. 
The red shield and the white are among the oldest in 
France. The Count of Jaffa bore a gold field with a 
cross patee gules.* The arms of Jerusalem were older 
than heraldic rules which made them false heraldry, as 
shewing metal upon metal. The Turks had also their 
badges, on banners or bucklers, and in the twelfth century 
the family of Ortok bore the two-headed eagle", which 
they may have noticed carved on the rocks of Asia 
Minor by the Hittite tribes four thousand years earlier, 
and which came to Russia, and to Austria, to be thus 
adopted finally by two Christian emperors.f In the 
thirteenth century the Egyptian sultans bore the lion, 
which equally appears on the seal of John, Viscount of 
Tripoli ; and Kelaun bore the duck according to the 
Mongol meaning of his name4 The lambrequin, or roll 
round the helmet, was perhaps taken from the Arab head- 
dress. The heraldic furs all came from Asiatic trade. 

* Joynville (Chron. of Crusades, p. 399). 

t The two-headed eagle, supposed to represent the mythical hamka or 
rukh, is found as early as 1217 on coins and standards of the Turkomans, 
and is represented on the walls of Diarbekr. It occurs in 1260 on coins of 
Otho, the Flemish Count of Gueldres ; of Arnold, Count of Looz ; and of 
Robert de Thoureth, bishop of Liege. In 1345 it became the arms of the 
Holy Roman Empire : in 1497 it is found on the seal of Ivan III, Czar of 
Moskow, after his marriage, in 1472, with Sophia, daughter of Constantine 
Palaeologus. It is found also on coins of the Arsacidae in Persia (third 
century A. D.), and on Indian coins, where it represents the mythical garuda 
bird. The oldest examples are on the Hittite monuments of Pteria and 
Eyuk. (See Count Goblet D'Alviella's Migration of Symbols, pp. xii, 22.) 

J Rey, Colonies Franques, p. 51. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 177 

Henry of Champagne even deigned to wear the turban 
and the Arab robe which Saladin sent him.* 

The infantry of the Franks had a short shirt of mail, 
and leather breeches mail covered, with helmets and 
long shields. They carried the spear, and Danish axe, 
and club, the sling, and dagger. The lance and sword 
were used by horsemen. The Prisons had a javelin 
with a thongf, but the bows and cross-bows of the 
archers placed between the spearmen did most execu- 
tion.^: The native troops, light armed and irregularly 
marshalled, must be considered later. The army 
marched round its standard, which was sometimes 
drawn on a truck, and ambulances for the sick were not 
forgotten, with provision waggons, and pack horses. 
The music of the army included horns and trumpets, 
the pipe, the timbrel, the harp,|| and the nacaires or 
metal drumslf borrowed from the East. 

The dresses worn in time of peace were rich and 
gay, and increased in magnificence as wealth increased. 
They were often inherited, and all men were expected 
to dress according to their rank, and not to ape their 
superiors. The hair was worn long except by Templars, 
and the beard was grown. King Richard shaved the 
beards of the Cypriotes " in token of their change of 
masters."** The dresses also appear to have been long 

* Rey, Colonies Pratiques, p. 12. 

t Jeoff. de Vinsauf, I, 18. 

J Ditto, VI, 22. 

Ditto, I, 19 ; IV, 10. 

|| Ditto, III, 2. 

IT Pietro de la Valle (Bohn's Chronicles of Crusades, p. 389, note). 

* Jacques de Vitry, p. 68, English translation ; fcoffrey de Vinsatif, 
II, 36. 



1 78 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



and loose, with wide sleeves, and lined with fur, which 
has always been prized in the East, though the short 
cloak of Anjou also belongs to the twelfth century. 
The costume of the French knights in Palestine is 
described, in the time of the third Crusade, in quaint 
terms : 

" For the sleeves of their garments \vere fastened with 
gold chains, and they wantonly exposed their waists, 
which were confined with embroidered belts, and they 
kept back with their arms their cloaks, which were 
fastened so that not a wrinkle should be seen in their 
garments . . . and round their necks were collars 
glittering with jewels, and on their heads garlands inter- 
woven with flowers of every hue : they carried goblets not 
falchions in their hands."* 

King Richard's own dress was specially magnificent 
at the time of his wedding in Cyprus. He rode on a 
red saddle spangled with gold, and having the peak be- 
hind adorned with gold lions. His vest was rose coloured, 
with crescents of solid silver ; his hat of scarlet embroi- 
dered with beasts and birds. His sword hilt was gold, 
and the scabbard, bound with silver, was attached by a 
woven belt. His spurs were also of gold.f 

In the thirteenth century Joynville describes equally 
magnificent costumes. His own squire was dressed in 
scarlet striped with yellow. The surcoats at festivals 
were often of cloth of gold ; and broidered coats of arms 
and rich saddles became commoner, and in the East 

* J eo ff re y d Vinsaiif, V, 20. 
t Ditto, II, 36. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 179 



St. Louis wore black silk lined with squirrel skins, 
and with gold buttons. The surcoat was sometimes of 
"velvet in grain," and the hats lined with ermine for 
kings. The knights were clad in silk, and the coverlets 
on the beds were of scarlet lined with minever the fur 
of the Siberian squirrel ; in which mantles also the 
dubbed knights were wrapped after the bath.* The 
merchants were more soberly dressed in camlet with 
rabbit's fur, or in the woollen tyretain named from Tyre. 
The monks and palmers wore the roughest dress, but the 
array of the higher clergy was rich and costly. 

The Latin ladies were equally magnificent, in long 
trained dresses with long wide sleeves. The tall slight 
figures, with plaited locks hanging to the waist from 
either shoulder, are known from the monuments. The 
grey Norman eyes, and fine small features, most 
admired, were very different to the ruddy and black 
browed Armenian beauty, or to the fine olive com- 
plexion and long black lashes of the pure Arab 
women, whom, however, the knights seem also to have 
admired, though less attracted by the dead-white hue 
of the stout Greek ladies, who painted their faces, as 
they still continue to do. The baronesses were decked 
in samite and cloth of gold, with pearls and precious 
stones. Ibn Jobeir describes the bride he saw at Acre 
in 1184 A.D.,t in a sweeping robe of cloth of gold, with 
diadem and veil also of gold : who walked preceded by 



* Joynville (Bohn's Chronicles of Cnisades, pp. 353, 357, 364, 397, 440, 
459, 461, 515). 
t Key, Colonies Franques, p. 13. 



i8o THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

seigneurs in their festal dresses, and accompanied with 
music and with song. 

The laws of chivalry gave to these ladies from the 
West a very different position to that of their Eastern 
sisters. Though faithless dames and recreant knights 
were found, the creed of the gentle embodied the truths 
of their faith, whatever they thought of its dogmas. To 
be brave and true was not enough unless a man were 
also humble of heart, and courteous to all, and pure of 
life, and kind and merciful. It was no idle saying that 
" next to God all honour came from ladies," for the 
deeds of the age shew us how all that was done was by 
the dame's consent. When she was an heiress she 
made her own agreements, by consent of her husband. 
Whether the manners of modern society are preferable 
to those of houses which, from one generation to another, 
trained up the young who lived in the castles of their 
seigneurs in all that was fair and gentle, as well as in 
all that was manly and adventurous, we may perhaps 
doubt ; in a time when many of the clergy were ignorant 
and self-seeking, and the lower classes brutal, such 
education was the very salt of the earth ; and the 
influence of ladies was a softening restraint on violent 
and daring men. Venetian traders might immure their 
women in palaces not unlike the harims of the East,* 
but the Norman lady was not only free, but was the 
queen of all who stood before her. For Salique law, 
named from a Prankish tribe, was never binding on 

* Jacques de Vitiy (p. 64) speaks with contempt of the Pouiains or 
half-castes who shut up their wives. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 181 

Normans, and the fiefs descended not only to the heiress, 
but to the second husband of the widow without a child. 
The age of majority was fixed for boys at fifteen, and 
for girls at twelve, by the Assizes, yet mothers of princes 
sometimes kept their sons in ward till twenty-one,* and 
Milicent exacted obedience from her son for many years, 
having herself been crowned. The courage of ladies 
who went out on long campaigns with their husbands to 
the East, who held their wedding feasts in beleaguered 
castles, and bore children on crowded galleys (like 
Queen Margaret of Provence), obliged to set to sea 
again with infants of a few weeks old, will not be 
questioned. The degeneracy of the later generation is 
traced to marriages with native women, and not to be 
laid to the account of Latin ladies. Queen Theodora 
was served by eunuchs but she was a Greek.f In the 
early days of Baldwin I a Christian knight did not fail 
to care for a Moslem's wife even when fighting against 
her lord ; but when the Syrian dancing women began 
to appear in the castles, and delighted the French at 
Acre, the spirit of chivalry was already dead. 

The life of both knights and ladies in the castles was 
perhaps less dull in Palestine, where the winter nights 
were not so long, than in Europe. Gloomy and bare as 
the great halls and turret chambers now appear, they 
were at least cool in summer and warm in winter, 
because of the thickness of their walls. The light of the 
wax torches, tapers, and lamps, was dim ; but few read, 

* Joynville (Bohn's Ckron, of Crusades, p. 487). 

t Abu el Faraj, quoted by Rey, Colonies Franoues, p. 106. 



1 82 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

and usually they went to bed early, and so enjoyed the 
early dewy dawn. Knights and ladies played chess 
with huge pieces on heavy boards. The men gambled 
at " tables." The ladies sewed and embroidered, they 
played the milder games of draughts and backgam- 
mon, and made wonderful cates, and distilled waters, 
and said their prayers from jewelled breviaries, and 
taught their daughters all a dame should know. There 
were, moreover, rich Oriental hangings, and wondrous 
Persian carpets, and pillows of silk and down, to beautify 
their bowers ; and all the glorious art and colour of the 
East was at their service. They drank from chaced 
goblets of silver and gold crusted with gems, and 
enjoyed the baths of the castle, and the noonday siesta. 
They went out to hawk and hunt, or to wander in 
gardens and orchards ; and merchants came to them 
with rich stuffs and jewels, and works of exquisite 
Oriental art ; and jongleurs, troubadours, musicians, and 
readers of romances paid their lodging with perform- 
ances at evening, in the great dining hall of the castle. 

The tables were spread with fine white linen. The 
food included game and fish the roebuck of Carmel, the 
fallow deer of Tabor, the gazelle of the plains, bears' 
feet from Hermon, Greek partridges, and quails, wood- 
cock and snipe, and desert grouse, as well as mutton 
and beef, wild boar and fowls. The fruits of Syria 
oranges and lemons, damsons and pears, apricots and 
quinces, apples and nuts, dates and bananas, grapes 
and melons were followed by spices and preserves ; 
and flowers of orange or violet, crystallised in sugar. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 183 

The sauces, learned from the Arabs, with vinegar and 
lemon juice, seasoned the dishes. They drank the 
heady wines of Lebanon and Hermon, and beer spiced 
with nutmeg and cloves, and sherbet cooled with snow. 
They had butter and cheeses in spring, and the sour 
delicious leben of the Arabs. There were flowers enough 
in the plains and valleys tulips and anemone, narcissus 
and cyclamen ; and roses, at Gebal and Damascus and 
growing wild on Hermon ; and fragrant gardens often 
lay within the city walls. William of Tyre speaks of 
the dances of natives, celebrating family festivals* ; and 
for music they had harps and lutes, organs and rebecks 
cymbals and nacaires, flutes and guitars.f 

For amusements they had the tournay, and feats 
of skill on horseback, and the quintaine, and hunting 
and hawking. There was plenty of game : even bears 
and leopards, as well as gazelles : and King Fulk was 
killed chasing a hare with a lance. The boar was also 
noble sport, and the hounds were excellent, as were the 
Arab slughis or greyhounds. They also hunted with 
cheetahs and lynxesj ; and Arab emirs were as fond of 
hawking as the knights who lost their hawks and hounds 
in Phrygia, or Philip of France whose falcon flew into 
Acre. King Richard went boar hunting near Ascalon 
in the midst of the war, and was nearly killed by an 
ambush when hawking. The life of the Normans was 
gay and pleasant, but for the fever in the lowlands, and 
the mosquitos, and fleas, and heat, and, in a lesser 

* Will. Tyre, quoted by Rey, p. 49, Col. Franques. 
t Ditto, p. 47. t Ditto, p. 55. 

Jeoffreyde Vinsauf, IV, 28; V, 31. 



1 84 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

degree, the snakes and scorpions which sometimes 
gave trouble. The two curses of the nobles were wine 
and dicing ; and the latter especially was a crying evil. 
The temperance of the Normans was naturally greater 
than that of Germans, but the natives of Palestine saw 
with astonishment the mighty eating of the English.* 
Fishing was perhaps not an amusement, but the Latins 
ate fish in Lent, and the monks were fond of eels. 
Among other rights we find noticed that of eight days' 
fishing between Septuagesima and Easter in the Sea of 
Galilee which swarmed with fish and of keeping a 
ship on the lake, granted by the Patriarch. Boemund 
of Antioch gave the monks of Tabor a thousand eels 
each year, from the lake of Antioch ; and the brethren 
of St. Lazarus gained the same privilege in 1216 A.D.f 

The monuments which the Latins left behind them in 
castles and churches attest their mastery of the art of 
building. The masonry was far more truly cut than 
that of the Byzantines : the slender clustered pillars : 
the bold and sharp relief of the foliaged capitals : the 
intricate designs of cornices, witness their skill as masons 
and sculptors. The mighty rusticated stones of the 
ramparts rival the Roman ashlar in size and fitting. 
Their mortar, with powdered shells and pottery, was 
harder than stone : their arches and ribbed groins were 
superior to the Arab workmanship. The finer finished 
masonry is signed with masons' marks, including 
Norman letters and mystic signs the bow, the fish, the 

* Richard of Devizes (Bohn's Chron. of Crusades, p. 58). 
t Regesta t Nos. 142, 629, 888. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 185 

hour glass, the trident, and fleur de lys, Solomon's seal 
and the shield of David ; and the same marks so found 
in the twelfth century in Palestine,' where the builders 
were Italians and Sicilians, recur in the thirteenth and 
fourteenth centuries on the walls of cathedrals in France, 
in England and in Scotland. 

The houses in the cities were yet more noble than the 
castle halls. The towns were small, at least within the 
walls, though suburbs sometimes stretched among gar- 
dens beyond, as unwalled hamlets also climbed the steep 
slopes to the scarped rock and deep ditches of the castle. 
The chateau of Beirut* close to the sea, looked out on 
the bay on one side and on the gardens round the city 
on the other. A floor of mosaic in the hall represented 
waves : the walls were veneered with marble : the 
vaulted roof was painted like the sky. A marble 
fountain stood in the midst, and a dragon disgorged a 
stream from its mouth. Large windows let in the sea 
breeze, and the coolness of the chamber was delightful 
in summer. 

Acre, and Tyre, and Antioch were full of palaces, on 
whose roofs the noble ladies walked in crowns of gold. 
The streets were covered with coloured awnings, after 
the Italian manner ; and the ceilings of the Sidon 
palaces were of cedar brought from Lebanon.! Antioch 
was full of fountains, fed by a great reservoir on the 
heights in the north-west corner of the city. The houses, 
as at Damascus, were on the outside of mud, but they 

* Will, of Oldenburg, quoted by Rey, Colonies Franques, pp. 8, 326. 
t See authorities in Robinson's Biblical Researches, II, p. 4^2. 

O 



1 86 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

enclosed courts paved with marble, with tanks and 
gardens of orange-trees ; and underground channels 
carried running water through the houses. 

The castles were perched on heights, or raised on 
hillocks in the plain. The outer walls ran along the 
precipices, often scarped, and the approaches were cut 
off by rock cut ditches difficult to undermine, in which 
were rock cut stables with rocky mangers for the horses. 
The inner baily was fortified with a second wall, and led 
to the courtyard into which the chambers opened ; while 
great outer towers often replaced, or else were added to 
the keep. The Templars built round chapels in their 
towns and castles. The Hospitallers had also chapels in 
their inner courtyards. The best remaining examples, 
at Toron, Banias, and Krak des Chevaliers, still remain 
almost intact, and at Krak, north-east of Tripoli, the 
battlements of the towers are standing, and the heavy 
oaken door, studded with nails, leads to the stepped and 
vaulted passage, by which the horseman rides into the 
inner court. 

Yet more remarkable are the Latin churches still 
either standing in ruins or preserved as mosques. In 
the earlier age the masonry is heavy and half Byzantine, 
with classic pillars and round arches; but about 1140 
A.D. the pointed arch at first low and broad begins 
to be associated with clustered shafts, ribbed vaults 
with groins, and delicate tracery. The Norman dog- 
tooth moulding also then appears, and a peculiar 
arch with voussoirs like the backs of books in row. In 
addition to cathedrals and priories churches were raised 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 187 

by foreign princes, as when Conrad III of Dachau 
vowed as a pilgrim to build one.* The earliest erected 
was the choir of the Holy Sepulchre, and the church 
of Tabor was built in 1 1 10 A.D., St. Mary Latin in 
Jerusalem was standing in 1 103 A.D., and Ste. Marie la 
Grande in 1 140 A.D. The small but beautiful church 
of Bireh was built in 1146, St. Samuel of Mountjoy in 
1157, and the Nazareth church was the latest in 1185. 
They all included fonts, superseding the Greek baptis- 
tries, and that at Bethlehem bore the modest inscription 
that it was given by those " whose names are known to 
the Lord." The beautiful church of St. John at Gaza, 
and that of St. Mary at Ramleh, stand almost intact as 
mosques. At Hebron a Gothic church occupies half of 
the ancient Herodian enclosure, round the tomb of 
Abraham. In Caesarea only foundations of the great 
cathedral remain, and not much more at Tyre. At 
Samaria the church of St. John is half ruined : at Nablus 
the principal building dating about 1150, is now a 
mosque. The ruins of the large churches at Tabor and 
Nazareth are traceable, but those of Acre have perished. 
In Syria the best preserved example is that at Tortosa 
with its added minaret.f The plan is nearly always the 
same, St. Samuel being the only cruciform church pF 
the age. A nave and aisles ended in three apses, built, 
for the Latin rite and not divided by walls. In one case, 
(at Kubeibeh north of Jerusalem) the stone altar stands 
yet against the central apse wall ; and the piscina is 

* Regesta, 623. 

t Boha eel Din says that Saladin destroyed the church at Tortosa in' 
1188. The existing church may have been built in the I3th century. 

O 2 



1 88 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

often traceable. The nave rose to a second tier, with 
clerestory windows above the roofs of the aisles, and a 
barrel vault is usual to both aisles and nave. 

For the adornment of churches and monasteries 
pictures in glass mosaic, or frescoes, were sometimes 
made. They existed in the cathedral of the Holy 
Sepulchre, and in the Templum Domini, but are only 
extant now at Bethlehem. These latter mosaics were 
given by Michael Comnenos, whose portrait the artist 
Efrem introduced among the saints. The groundwork 
was of gold, and from the fragments left we know them 
to have represented half lengths of the ancestors of 
Christ, with Greek inscriptions, and buildings with cur- 
tained altars and arabesque foliage, referring to the 
councils of the church; while quaint Byzantine figures 
of angels stand above between the windows. On the 
west wall Joel, Amos, Nahum, Micah, Ezekiel, Isaiah 
and Balaam were figured with a " tree of Jesse " whence 
they sprang. In the choir the subjects represented were 
from the life of Christ and of the Virgin. In the Jordan 
Valley, near Jericho, the ruins of the Latin monastery 
of Hajlah were till recently covered with Byzantine 
frescoes of the twelfth or thirteenth century, now 
destroyed by the vandalism of Greek monks. The 
subjects included the Resurrection, and the Last Supper, 
with figures of Pope Sylvester, Sophronius of Jerusalem, 
John Eleemon, and Andrew of Crete, and a smaller 
picture of the Annunciation. This monastery appears* 
to- have been the famous Calamon of the middle ages. 

* Phocas. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 189 

Near Tripoli also a rock, with hermits' graves, is covered 
with pictures over which coarser pictures were painted 
by the Greeks in later times. The earlier designs 
represent Christ as the carpenter, the Annunciation, the 
Salutation, Christ enthroned between Joseph and Mary, 
and a figure on a tree perhaps intended for Christ on. 
the Tree of Paradise (taken from the gospel of Nico- 
demus), with other subjects connected with the legend 
of some saint or Latin abbot 

The Latins were mainly influenced in their art by 
Byzantine models, and probably employed Byzantine 
artists. The miraculous pictures of Tortosa and SardenaL 
were already ancient when they came with others 
bearing Syriac inscriptions. At Beirut was a picture of 
Christ, which was said to have bled when the Jews 
pierced it with a spear,* and a drop of this blood healed 
the sick. The Latins had statues as well as pictures 
in their churches, such as the full-sized silver statue of 
Christ above the Holy Sepulchre itself.f Their seals 
and coins were also influenced by Byzantine art. K\ 
special coinage was however struck at Acre, in the 
thirteenth century, for use with natives, bearing the 
cross on one side and the Arab legend " God is One '' 
on the other, and round the centre, also in Aiabic, the 
words " Father, Son and Holy Ghost," " Struck at Acre 
in the year 1251 of the Messiah." Similar coins were 
struck at Antioch, and they were called Saracen bezants, 
and contained about seven shillings in gold. One of 

* Jacques de Vitry, p. 6, English translation. 

t Fetelhis, p. 52, English translation ; A.'wot Dante!, pp. 15, 55, 
Enelish translation. 



190 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

the most remarkable relics of twelfth century art is the 
breviary of Queen Milicent, now in the British Museum, 
with its covers of carved ivory and silver, and silk back 
embroidered with a cross of gold all in Byzantine style. 

The Latins were at first extremely ignorant of litera- 
ture, and Theodorich remarks that, being strangers, they 
knew the names of few places.* They indeed carried 
hopeless confusion into topography when they placed 
Beersheba at Beit Jibrin, Bethel at Jerusalem, and 
Ashdod at Arsuf. The ancient Bible towns were much 
better known in St. Jerome's time, and often preserved 
by the Greeks while the Latins invented new sacred 
sites. They could not read Arabic as a rule, and when 
Tripoli was taken they burned the valuable library of 
the Kadi Abu Thaleb Hosein.f Yet the Normans 
were not all illiterate, since Henry Beauclerk already had 
translated ^Esop's fables. A knowledge of Greek was 
attained by churchmen like Geoffrey, abbot of the 
Templum Domini ; and Renaud of Belfort studied 
Oriental sciences under native masters in Saladin's 
time.* Jurisprudence was also much studied, and a 
theologian was expected to understand grammar, logic, 
and rhetoric. Early in the thirteenth century Jacques 
de Vitry gives a good account of the fauna of Syria 
and Egypt, describing such animals as the lynx and 
jackal, the cheetah and cerastes, the hyena and hippo- 
potamus. He had heard from traders of the elephant 
and rhinoceros, the caiman, the boa, and the beaver. He 

"" Theodorich, p. 2, English translation. 
t Rey, Colonies Franqties, p. 165. 
J Ditto, pp. 172, 173, and Boha ccl Din. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. igi 

knew the ibis, and might have seen crocodiles in the 
river north of Caesarea, where they had been for a 
thousand years at least (being noticed by Pliny and 
Strabo), though tradition said they came from Egypt. 
He had also seen parrots brought from India, and knew 
that the pearls of the Persian Gulf came from oysters. 
But such learning spread rather among laymen than in 
the Church, and few of the clergy had studied at the 
University of Paris, as William of Tyre had done for 
ten years.* 

The corruption of the church is recognised and 
lamented by more than one chronicler himself a priest. 
Richly endowed, and with bequests constantly increasing 
through the piety of kings and nobles, the bishops, 
abbots, and priors lived in luxury, feasting and exacting 
tithes from all, and often oppressing the villeins till they 
appealed to king or viscount. They drank good wine, 
and sometimes led scandalous lives, till Saladin swept 
away their glebe lands, and left them destitute exiles, or 
subjects of the Moslems, who gave their lands to the 
mosques. 

In Europe the Papal power increased and reached its 
culmination while the rich Syrian church obeyed the 1 
fiat of Rome. In the time of King Fulk, Louis VII 
was entangled in disputes with Pope Innocent II, who 
claimed the right of investiture to benefices in France. 
Thirty years later the Papal power was at its height in 
England, as represented by Thomas a Becket, when 

* This university is traced to 1150-70 A.D. Its four nations were 
however, not recognised by the Popes till 1231. 



192 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

bishops usurped the rights of king and people. After 
the third Crusade, in 1208 A.D., came the quarrel with 
Innocent III as to Stephen Langton, when King John 
was forced to receive his crown anew from the Pope, 
and interdict and excommunication followed each other, 
and tribute was levied on England by Rome. About 
the middle of the twelfth century Alexander III made 
the proud Frederic Barbarossa prostrate himself before 
him, and set his foot on his neck. But heresy already 
troubled the court of Rome, in Languedoc, and an emperor 
was to arise who cared not at all for excommunication : 
the Eastern churches were slow to be reconciled when 
their bishops had been dethroned by the Latins. Even 
in the presence of a disaster like Hattin it was difficult 
to rouse the ancient spirit, and when King Richard 
came to aid the cause of the Church his settlement of the 
East was only improved on for a few short years by 
an adversary of the Pope, and the Crusaders' zeal died 
out never to be revived. The fortunes of the Church of 
Rome waxed and waned with the fortunes of the Latins 
in the East. 

In 1113 A.D. Pascal II placed the bounds of the 
patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem at the River 
Eleutherus,* having exhorted the clergy to obedience 
two years earlier, and approved the parishes in the same 
year.f Councils were held under the Legate at Jerusalem, 
in 1 107 and 1 1 1 1 A.D.,J and to depose the Patriarch in 
1115 ; in 1 1 20 there was a council at Nablus for reform 

* Regesta, 72, 73. 

t Ditto, 60, 6l. 

% Ditto, 50, 62, 81, 89, 171, 203, 208. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 193 

of morals : in 1 137 the encroachments of the Patriarch of 
Antioch were annulled by Innocent II: in 1141 there 
was a Council at Antioch ; and in the next year, on Sion, 
to warn the Armenian Catholicus against his abhorrent 
heresies ; and many references to Rome served in 
addition to confirm the Pope's authority over the Church 
in Syria. Most of the bishoprics were at ancient 
centres, established in the fourth and fifth centuries, but 
in Palestine some new sees were established, including 
Hebron, Nazareth, Bethlehem, Banias, Jaffa, and Es 
Salt. Nazareth was so raised in 1160, and Hebron in 
1167 A.D. The Church of St. Peter became a cathedral 
at Jaffa in 1169, and Banias was reconstituted in the 
same year. The four Metropolitans, under the Latin 
Patriarch of Jerusalem, were the Archbishops of Caesarea, 
Tyre, Tiberias, and Montreal or Petra. Jericho and 
Livias were under Petra with Sinai (a Greek convent) ; 
and the northern regions, including Acre and Banias, 
were under Tyre. Nazareth afterwards gave a suffragan 
to Tiberias, to which the churches east of the upper 
Jordan belonged.* This division differed therefore from 

* Jacques cle Vitry, writing about 1220, gives the following organisation 
(pp. 33-34, English translation), under the Patriarch of Jeiusalem, of the 
four Metropolitans : I. Archbishop of Tyre, with fcur suffragans at Acre, 
Sidon, Beirut, Banias ; 2. Archbishop of Cxsarea, with one suffragan at 
Samaria ; 3. Archbishop of Nazareth, with one suffragan at Tibeiias (the 
see being changed from Beisan to Nazareth) ; 4. Aichbishop of Petra, with 
the Greek bishop of Sinai as suffragan. The Patriarch had directly under 
himself the bishops of Bethlehem, Hebron, and Lydda, with the priors of 
St. Sepulchre, Templum Domini, Mount Sion, and Olivet (Augustines) 
and Abbots of St. Mary Latin, Jehosaphat, St. Anne, and Bethany 
(Benedictines). The Benedictines of Mount Tabor were under the Arch- 
bishop of Nazareth. Jaffa had then no bishop, but was under the Prior and 
Canons of the Holy Sepulchre. Nablus had no bishcp but WES under the 
Temple. 



194 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

the old Greek Patriarchates of Palestina Prima, Secunda, 
and Tertia, in the introduction of a second metropolitan 
in Galilee. The bishops of the various Eastern rites 
except the Greek Orthodox consented to become suffra- 
gans of the Latins, but during the succession of the ten 
Latin Patriarchs who actually occupied a throne in the 
Holy City, the Greek Church enumerates a parallel list 
of eight rightful heads of the see. 

Some of the churches and monasteries were more 
famous, and received more donations, than any of the 
cathedrals ; but the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was 
the richest and most important of all. Godfrey bestowed 
twenty-one villages on the canons, and the number 
increased to seventy through the donations of other kings 
and of barons. These lay mainly in the mountains 
round Jerusalem within the Rpyal Domain; but in 1165 
five villages in Galilee were purchased, and land in the 
plain north-east of Caesarea.* They had also a church in 
Rome in 1179 A.D., and possessions yet earlier in Sicily. 
The loss of Jerusalem was a terrible blow to this church, 
but the canons were in part consoled by grants in and 
near Acre, and by new lands in Cyprus, and even in 
Poland. 

Next in wealth to the Sepulchre cathedral appears to 
have ranked the church of the Virgin's tomb Our Lady 
of Jehoshaphat. In the Bull of Pope^ Alexander IV, 
dating 3Oth January, 1255, no less than forty-eight 
villages are enumerated as its property, and thirty 

* Regesta, No. 420-425, see Quarterly Statement, Palestine Exploration 
Ftind, January, 1890. There are fifty documents in the Cartulary of the 
Holy Sepulchre, referring to property in Palestine and in Europe. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 195 

documents refer to their gradual acquisition. This 
, church also had lands in Calabria, Apulia, and Sicily. 
It stands yet unharmed in the Kidron Valley near 
Gethsemane, with a Norman faade, and a long flight 
of steps within, leading down to the cave chapel, where 
Queen Milicent, who rebuilt it in 1 161, was buried ; but it 
has passed from the hands of Latins to those of the Greeks. 
The church of Bethlehem also attracted the piety of 
many donors, and the possessions which belonged to it, 
enumerated in Bulls of Gregory IX in 1227 A.D. and 
Clement IV in 1266 A.D., amounted to forty in all ; but 
the names were so badly transcribed that many are 
doubtful. They were, however, scattered all over Pales- 
tine and Syria. The abbey of Tabor owned thirty-four 
villages in Lower Galilee, and twenty-two beyond 
Jordan or in the Jordan Valley. It was one of the 
oldest foundations, as shown by the Bull of Pope 
Pascal II, dating from the 2Qth July, 1103 A.D. 
Another important abbey was that of St. Sion, outside 
Jerusalem to the south ; and the Bull of Alexander III, 
in 1179 A.D., enumerates twenty-eight villages belonging 
to this ancient church. These also were scattered in the 
lands of Ascalon, Caesarea, Nablus, Samaria, in Lower 
Galilee, near Tyre, and Sardenai ; and in addition lands 
were granted in Sicily, Apulia and Calabria, Lombardy 
and France. The church of Nazareth likewise owned 
property in Europe, and, among other churches con- 
cerning which documents have been preserved, are those 
of Tyre, Shechem, Bethel, St. Mark in Acre, St. Mary 
Latin, and the Quarantania chapels. 



196 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Queen Milicent also founded a famous nunnery of 
St. Lazarus at Bethany, where she built a tower. It 
was built in 1 147 ; and two years before her death 
(n6oA.D.) she gave two villages near Nablus whither 
she had retired. Many other donors presented vine- 
yards and hamlets, but, in 1256 A.D., Pope Alex- 
ander IV was obliged to ask that the Benedictine 
abbess and the nuns should receive necessaries from the 
Premonstrant abbot in Acre, their nunnery at Bethany 
having been destroyed by the Saracens.* There was 
another St. Lazarus outside Jerusalem on the north, 
close to the Lazarus Postern, west of the Gate of St. 
Stephen. It received, from King Amaury, in 1171 A.D., 
an annual sum of 2$ from the tolls of the Gate of 
David, to support certain lepers ; and in 1174 he added 
14 from the customs of Acre. There is a pathetic 
significance in these donations, when it is remembered 
that King Amaury's son was already known to be a 
leper.f 

The tithes of the church were levied not only on crops 
but on beasts and many other things titheable, and even 
on the spoils of war ;$ disputes as to these tithes often 
arose even within the Church itself, as when the Abbot 
of Mount Tabor appealed to the Patriarch against the 
Prior of the Holy Sepulchre, concerning the tithes of 
Sinjil and two other villages in the Nablus hills. By 
the reformation of morals, in 1 120 A.D., appears to have 

* Regesta, No. 1244. 

t Ditto, Nos. 487, 512, 995. 

J Rey, Colonies Pratiques, p. 270. 

Regesta, No. 23 $. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 197 

been understood the regular payment of tithes. The 
power of the ecclesiastical courts, as settled by the 
Assizes, was considerable. They judged the clergy on 
questions of heresy and sorcery, and pronounced decrees 
of nullity of marriage. In four cases the wife was 
obliged to enter a convent, and her dowry was restored, 
either in a capital sum or by annual payments. All 
questions of wills and bequests, of tithes and churches, 
were also judged by this court.* 

The earliest religious order of the Latins in Palestine 
seems to have been the Benedictine, established in the 
Amalfi hospice in Jerusalem by 1023 A.D. The Bethany 
convent was also Benedictine.f The grey monks, or 
Premonstrants, are said to have originated at St. Samuel 
the hill called Mount Joie by the Franks north of Jeru- 
salem! ; they lived under the rule of St. Basil. In the 
thirteenth century they are found in Acre. The Mino- 
rites or Franciscan friars, who were sent out for conver- 
sion of the infidels, belong also to this later century, and 
in 1350 were still settled at Jerusalem, when amid many 
dangers they buried the dead in Aceldama. The brethren 
of St. Lazarus, who tended the lepers, bore a green cross 
and were under the rule of St. Augustin. In 1272, we 
find a monk relinquishing the order of St. Damian, to 
join that of St. Augustin.|| The most celebrated how- 
ever of the Syrian orders were the Carmelites. Cluny 
monks had settled at Tabor in 1113, and arrived at 

* Key, Colonies Franques, p. 269. 

t Revest a, 1275-7-8. 

% Theodorich, 38, see p. 58, note, English translation. 

Rey, Colonies Franques, p. 280. 

|| Kegesta, 1385. 



198 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Haifa in 1170 A.D.,* and one who came from Calabria 
an ordained priest had there built a tower and a chapel, 
and had gathered ten brethren, by 1185.1 About 1209 
they obtained a rule, for " Brocardus and the other 
hermits," from the Patriarch of Jerusalem .% There was 
then a monastery of St. Margaret about two miles to 
the south of their hermitage ; but four of the Cluny 
brothers were still found in the church of the Palm 
Grove north of Haifa ; and another chapel of St. Denys 
seems to have existed at the foot of Carmel. | The 
hermitage of St. Brocardus was apparently near the 
present monastery on the Carmel promontory, where 
was a cave supposed to have been inhabited by Elijah, 
which was the real motive of these anchorites in selecting 
the mountain for their retreat. Baldwin IV gave to 
their ship a right of free anchorage.1! In 1248 A.D. their 
rule which excluded all use of meat seems to have 
been found too severe for the climate ; and it was miti- 
gated by the bishop of Tortosa** ; two years later the 
Seigneur of Haifa mentions them, in connection with 
vineyards on the mountain given to the Abbot of Mount 
Tabor. ft They became numerous in Palestine, but were 
cruelly massacred by the Moslems in 1291. St. Simon 
Stock, of Kent, was General of the Order in 1245, and 



* Rcgesta, 484. 

t Phocas, p. 35, English translation. 

j Regesta, 489. 

City of Jerusalem, p. 31, English translation. 

|| Regesta, No. 495, City of Jerusalem, p. 30, English translation. 
*f Regesta, 606. 

"" Ditto, 1165. 
ft Ditto, 1189. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 199 

they were visited by St. Louis and by Edward the First 
of England. Such was the origin of a celebrated Order, 
which traces even to 1163 A.D., when Benjamin of 
Tudela found a chapel by the cave. The Greek hermits 
preceded them, and received a rule as early as 412 A.D. 
Simon Stock was the first to wear the scapular among 
them. When they fell, chanting the Salve Regina, 
under the swords of the cruel Egyptians, the Order 
became extinct for three centuries and a half, and twice 
after that were they massacred, yet still remain in 
possession.* 

Although the payments made to churches were a very 
heavy charge on the kingdom, it is not to be forgotten 
that the clergy maintained the poor and aided the 
pilgrims, though not to the same degree with the Military 
Orders of monks. They also paid taxes, and led troops 
in some cases to war, like the aged Archbishop Baldwin, 
with Richard Lion Heart, or the valiant Bishop of Sois- 
sons, who charged the Saracens single-handed in the time 
of St. Louis.f Some churchmen were of high character 
and ability, like William of Tyre, who was born in 
Palestine about 1127 A.D., and went to study at the 
University of Paris for ten years. He was the tutor of 
Baldwin IV, and Archbishop of Tyre in 1173 A.D. After 
writing his famous history he busied himself in preaching 
the third Crusade in Europe. His elevation to the 
Patriarchate of Jerusalem was defeated by an intrigue, 
Queen Maria, the Greek wife of, Amaury, preferring the 

* Tent Work in Palestine, Vol. I, p. 176, from the history of the Order 
found in the monastery in 1873. 

t Jeoff. de Vinsauf, I, 62 ; JoynviUe, p. 457, Bohn. 



200 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

dissolute Heraclius of Caesarea, whose life scandalised 
the Church. William of Tyre appealed to the Pope, 
but was poisoned by a doctor in the pay of his 
rival.* 

The pilgrims were an annual source of strength and 
of revenue to the State and to the Church. The Italian 
fleets which brought them, came yearly from Easter to 
June and left in August. They landed at Acre, where 
indulgences and pardons began, and journeyed along 
routes protected, at regular stages, by fortified posts, 
towers or castles. The palmers are mentioned in the 
earliest times of Baldwin I, and they bought their palms 
in the Street of Palms, leading east south of the 
Sepulchre.f The Knights Templar were their bankers, 
and led them to the Jordan under escort. They also 
visited Sardenai near Damascus, by special treaty with 
the Saracens in the thirteenth century, to obtain the 
oil which flowed from the breast of the miraculous 
picture of the Virgin, painted on wood ; and Tortosa 
with its portrait of the Virgin. The oil of Sardenai was 
a precious relic in French churches,* as was the hay 
from Bethlehem, sent to Rome it was said by Helena 
(three hundred years after it had been used as the bed 
of the infant Jesus). But all relics were not equally 
reliable: in the fifteenth century bodies of the Innocents 
were bought from the Saracens, which were manu- 
factured for the purpose with appropriate gashes, and 

* Rey, Colonies Pratiques, p. 272. 

t Saewulf, English translation, p. 8. City of Jerusalem, p. 7. 

% Rey, Colonies Pratiques. 

John of Wiirzburg, p. 54, English translation. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 201 

embalmed in myrrh.* Those who were unable to make 
the pilgrimage sent rings, with which their friends or 
persons paid for the service touched the sacred spots 
and relics. So Louis VII sent his ring by a Templar ; 
and even in the fifteenth century the custom survived, 
Felix Fabri being entrusted with many such jewels of 
great value.f The pilgrims also ate the red earth at 
Hebron, of which Adam was made:}: ; and the Pisans 
carried the earth of Aceldama to the Campo Santo. 

One of the most curious features of Church society, 
though not peculiar to the East, was the making of 
alliances of brotherhood between various religious 
bodies. This was no doubt a result of the chances of 
war, which might ruin one monastery but leave another 
untouched, as when the abbot of St. Paul's in Antioch 
swore brotherhood with the abbot of Mount Tabor, that 
he might be received should Antioch fall, which was 
only too probable in 1183 A.D. The relations with the 
Greek Church were also friendly at first, and Daniel, the 
Russian abbot, was kindly received by the rich Latin 
bishop of Nazareth)] ; but they grew bitter later, when 
the Orientals refused to enter the Roman fold. 

The most remarkable result of the conquest of Syria 
was, however, the formation of new Orders of chivalry, 
which were religious, and bound by vows of celibacy 
very contrary to the creed of knights who sought a 
lady's love. Of these the Knights of St. John were the 

* Felix Fabri, Vol. I, p. 566, English translation, 
t A'egesfa, 398 ; F. Fabri, Vol. I, p. 93, English translation. 
J John of Wiirzburg, 21. Regesta, No. 634. 

|| Abbot Daniel, p. 71, English translation. 



202 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

first, and the Templars followed five years later. The 
Teutonic Order belongs to the thirteenth century, 
although as early as 1143 A.D. Celestin II approved 
the separation of a special German hospice, set apart 
by the Knights Hospitallers,* which stood in the south 
quarter of the Holy City, where a few remains of its 
foundations and ribbed vaulting may still be seen 
near the tiny chapel of St. Thomas, now the house of 
a Morocco Jew. 

The canons of the Templum Domini were established 
by Godfrey, and in the last year of his reign, mS A.D., 
Baldwin I associated with them eight Burgundian 
knights under Hugh de Payen, vowed to poverty, 
chastity, and obedience, and tonsured as monks, granting 
them his palace the Templum Salomonis where half 
a century later they had erected a large refectory and 
other buildings. In 1126 A.D. Baldwin II asked for a 
rule to guide them, which Pope Honorius granted. Two 
years later St. Bernard was their advocate,f and by his 
aid the regulations of the Templars were drawn up at 
Troyes in 1128 A.D. Gradually they increased in power 
and wealth, and obtained lands in Palestine and in 
Europe ; but their greatest expansion was in the cen- 
tury after the kingdom fell. Unfortunately, the Car- 
tulary of the Order is lost, and the dates at which they 
obtained their lands and castles are unknown. Valenie, 
Tortosa, and Area were among their Syrian possessions, 
Belfort in Upper Galilee,^ and Gaza in the extreme 

* Regesta, No. 214. 

t Jacques de Vitry, p. 51, English translation. 

% Burchard of Mount Sion, p. 1 3, English translation. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 203 

south, with Chateau Arnaud and Emmaus-Nicopolis, 
concerning which their dispute with the Hospitallers 
was settled by the Pope in 1 179 A.D.* There was great 
jealousy, leading later to actual war, between the Orders. 
Tortosa became the Templar centre after Hattin, where 
their archives and treasure were stored. Their famous 
banner "beauseant" was black and white, and their robe, 
after 1 145 A.D.,f white, with the red cross. The seal of the 
Order represented the Templum Domini. At Hattin they 
are said to have lost two hundred and thirty knights in 
all, besides those slain shortly before at Nazareth. They 
then became very unpopular, and even much earlier 
were suspected of treachery at Damascus in the second 
Crusade. Conrad of Montferrat not a very reliable 
witness accused them in England of malversation of 
the funds sent out by Henry II, and to Frederic Barba- 
rossa of being more dangerous to Christendom than 
even the Saracens. Yet they were not allowed to 
hold personal property, though each knight provided 
three horses and a squire. 

Of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem 
much more is known, and they retained their popularity 
none the less because they opposed the tyranny of 
bishops. They had a great reputation for charity, and 
far outwent the Templars in their care of the poor and 
in their doles. The Order originated in one already 
existing when the Crusaders entered Jerusalem. The 
hospice of Charlemagne and its library were destroyed 

* Regesta, No. 572-3. 
t Jacques de Vitry, p. 51. 
\ Regesta, Nos. 653, 676. 

P 2 



204 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

in the eleventh century, but, soon after, the Benedictines 
were established by the Amalfi merchants,* and by leave 
of the Egyptian khalif. The firman of the Sultan 
Mudhaffer still exists in the Franciscan monastery 
in Jerusalem, which established the new hospice in 
1023 A.D. The first church of St. Mary Latin was 
standing south-east of the Holy Sepulchre in 1 103 
A.D., with the smaller establishment for women called 
St. Mary Parvaf ; and Gerard Tune was superior of 
the Benedictines when the Christians won the city.f 
Pascal II took under the protection of Rome all the 
property of the hospice in Syria and Europe, as early 
as 1113 A.D., when a new additional building had arisen 
near the new church of St. John Eleemon south of the 
Holy Sepulchre ; and Gerard Tune became the first 
Master of the military monks from that year until the 
death of Baldwin I. He was followed by Raymond du 
Puy, who erected the great buildings, still standing in 
ruins, about 1130 to 1140 A.D. The patron saint then 
became St. John Baptist. Seven other Grandmasters 
followed after 1 1 59 A.D., including Gamier de Nablus in 
the year of the battle of Hattln. A third church, St. 
Mary the Great, stood between the older hospice and 
that of St. John, and a nunnery lay to its south. 

The hospital was intended for the use of sick pilgrims, 
and St. Mary Latin for services in Latin. In the middle 

* Jacques de Vifiy, p. 47, English translation, 
t Saeivulf, p. 14. English translation. 

% Albert of Aix, VI, 25 ; William of Tyre, IX, 18 ; Regesta, No. 71. 
John of Wiirzbiirg, p. 44, English translation ; Theodorich, p. 22, 
English translation. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 205 

of the twelfth century more than two thousand men and 
women were admitted at one time.* The seal of the 
Order represented a sick person so tended. The dead 
were buried in the charnel house of Aceldama, over 
which a vault was built about 1 143 A.D.f It lay on the 
hill south of the Valley of Hinnom. In addition alms 
were distributed to the poor, and knights sworn to 
defend the holy places. The hospice outside the north 
gate of St. Stephen at first belonged to the Order, but 
later to the Temple^ and the Leper Hospital seems also 
to have grown out of the same organisation. When 
Saladin desecrated the churches, and built a minaret 
near the hospital, he respected this charitable institution 
and the pilgrims still occupied its beds. 

The Order of St. John was at first supported by 
certain tithes granted by the Church)] in the diocese of 
Caesarea, in Tripoli, Nazareth, Acre and elsewhere down 
to 1141 A.D. ; but the brethren had a large grant of 
property as early as I no A.D. from Baldwin 1,1! in all 
parts of the kingdom ; and their possessions grew 
steadily in Syria, as well as in Palestine,** especially in 
the western plains. By 1167 A.D. they had large lands 
near Antioch, and in 1179 bought property at Nablus, 
where their hospice is still inhabited by lepers. No less 
than one hundred and forty documents of the twelfth 

* John of Wiirzburg, p. 44, English translation, 
t Regesta, No. 215. 

J Theodorich, pp. 22, 42, English translation. 
City of Jerusalem, p. 16, English translation. 
|| Kegesta, Nos. 65, 78, 106-7-8, 117, 155, 205. 
H Ditto, No. 57. 

* Ditto, Nos. 118, 164, 293-4, 4 2 8, 583, 637. 



206 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

century are extant, referring to their affairs ; they spread 
to Turbessel near the Euphrates, and to Edessa beyond 
it : they took charge of Emesa (La Chamelle) in 1184, 
besides their hope of properties in Egypt. Gebal, 
Valenia, Tortosa, Gabala, were among their stations, with 
Latakia, Saone, Beirut, Marakia, and Margat. After the 
defeat of Hattin the Grand Master fixed his habitation 
at Krak des Chevaliers, where the beautiful chapel still 
bears the modest legend on its door 

Sit tibi copia 
Sit sapientia 
Formaque detur 
Inquinat omnia 
Sola superbia 
Si cometetur. 

The Hospitallers also begged for alms in Europe,* and 
were granted the taxes on certain Bedouin tribes newly 
subjugated.f All along the sea plains in the lands of 
Ascalon, Caesarea, and Jaffa, round Acre and Tiberias, 
in Upper Galilee, and at Scandalion north of Tyre, they 
bought properties and built castles and towers. By the 
thirteenth century they held more than one hundred 
and eighty villages, and to King Amaury they promised 
the help of a thousand knights. They would seem to 
have been more numerous than the Templars, and more 
trusted. Their dress was the black Dominican robe, 
with the white cross well known as that of Malta. 
Remembering the liberality of princes, the doles of 
Latin and Eastern churches and monasteries, and those 

* Rei>esta, Nos. 374, 422. 
t Ditto, 355, 568, 593- 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 207 

of the Temple and Hospital, we may suppose that, in 
a country not thickly populated, the poor were well 
tended, and that none need die of want. The lepers 
were no longer allowed to wander and die in misery at 
the town gates, but had special care devoted to them, 
at least in the later years of the century. It is re- 
markable, however, that leprosy was becoming a crying 
evil in France during the reign of Philip II, Augustus 
(1180-1223 A.D.), when lazar houses were established in 
every town. The disease is a sure companion of misery, 
bad food, and uncleanly habits, but that it is hereditary 
is certain, and that it is sometimes contagious appears 
also to be established. 

As with the Military Orders, which finally became 
the masters of the remainder of Palestine, after the 
destruction of the older organisation, so with the trading- 
communes, the chief development of power belongs 
to the thirteenth century ; but the movement begun 
soon after the Latin conquest. The Amain" merchants 
not only appeared in Jerusalem, but had also their 
street in Antioch before the first Crusade. The mother 
city was engrossed in trade, and free from war, in the 
middle of the century, with lands covered with vines and 
olives, gardens and orchards* : the men of Amalfi had 
also a cemetery in Acre, and free trade in Latakia, and 
houses in Tripoli. In 1171 they obtained immunity 
from tithes in five villages of the low hills near Lydda. 
The Pisans also settled in Latakia, Joppa, Acre, Tyre, 

* Benjamin of Titdela^ p. 69 Bohn's Early Travels in Palestine. 
Rcgesta, Nos. 372, 388, 453, 690. 



2o8 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

and Tripoli ; and Baldwin III gave them rights, which 
however excepted the iron, pitch, and other articles, 
of the Egyptian trade which they developed. Saladin 
confirmed their treaty with Egypt, as did his brother 
Seifed Din* 

The treaties with the Genoese have been already 
noticed. They were established in Antioch, Tripoli, 
Gebal, Jerusalem, and El Arish, under consulsf ; and 
made engagements for limited periods, in return for 
which they claimed a third of some towns such as 
Tripoli. The Pope supported them even against 
Baldwin III and Amaury, when their rights were 
ignored ; and their aid in the defence of Tyre, after 
Hattin, was most important, leading to the loss of 
Saladin's fleet. In Jibeil (Gebal) there were seven 
Genoese counsellors in 1163 A.D., under Julian 
Embriaco, who belonged to one of the oldest patri- 
cian families of Genoa, being a descendant of William 
Embriaco, who aided the princes to take Gebal in 
1109 A.D., and who was very jealously regarded at 
home. 

The Venetians, who in the thirteenth century acquired 
eighty villages near Tyre, already claimed a third of 
that city in the twelth, and quarters in Haifa, Acre, 
Sueidiyeh, Tripoli, and AscalonJ ; but their power was 
yet further to be increased, by the conquest of Byzan- 



* Regesta, Nos. 53, 292, 322, 324, 449, 500, 541, 585, 591, 617, 621. 

t Ditto, Nos. 12, 35, 43, 55, 153, 224, 247, 285-6-7, 312, 438, 659 ; 
William of Tyre, XI, 9; Benjamin of Tudela, p. 79, Bohn's Early 
Travels. 

% Regesta, 31, 84, 102-5, 139, 197-8, 282, 434, 632, 639. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 209 



tium itself. Finally, the merchants of Marseilles failed 
at Gebal in 1 103 A.D., but were specially serviceable at 
the taking of Ascalon. Baldwin II gave them bake- 
houses in Jerusalem ; King Fulk a yearly sum of 140 
from the customs of Jaffa ; Baldwin III added grants 
at Ramleh, and the Bishop of Bethlehem sold them, for 
420,' a property near Acre.* 

The Latin relations with Moslem princes were not 
less calculated to strengthen the State than were their 
alliances with the seafaring cities of Italy. The 
Turkish governors, jealous of one another, began, as 
we have seen, very early to call in the Christians to 
their aid. Roger, Governor of Antioch, was allied to 
the very El Ghazi, son of Ortok, whose tyranny in 
Jerusalem led to the Crusade, and this as early as 1115 
A.D. In 1116 and 1119 A.D. the people of Aleppo 
appealed to the Franks against Moslem princes.f In 
time of peace invitations to hunting and hawking were 
freely interchanged, and in 1192 A.D. King Richard 
actually knighted Saladin's nephew.! Godfrey himself 
made treaties with Moslem governors of Ascalon, Acre, 
Csesarea, Damascus, and Aleppo. The intermarriage 
with native women even included Saracens, who re- 
nounced their creed. Hence arose the mixed race 
called Poulains,! who were specially numerous among 

* Regesta, Nos. 38, 85, 163, 276, 386. 

t Rey, Colonies Franques, p. iv, note. 

t J*?ff> d . Vinsanf, V, 12. 

This word Poulains has been variously explained to mean Fellahtn, 
" ploughmen," or Falaniyiin " anybodies." Perhaps it is more probably 
to be connected with Pouloi, "offspring," as in the case of the Turkopoles. 
Jacques de Vitry (p. 58, English translation) derives the name from their 
Apulian mothers The Poulains were reputed to learn witchcraft from 



2io THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

the bourgeois class. Joynville tells us of a Turk 
knighted by the Emperor, who bore as arms those 
of Aleppo and Cairo, combined with those of the 
empire.* The offspring of Frank fathers and Greek 
women were known as Gasmoules. The most de- 
spised class were, however, the renegades, who were 
often prisoners of war, but trusted neither by Christians 
nor by Moslems. 

The caravans protected by the Latins were both 
Moslem and Christian, travelling from Mecca with the 
Moslem pilgrims, or coming from Baghdad and Mosul or 
from Christian Armenia. Fairs were held annually near 
the frontiers, such as the Meidan fair near the sources of 
Jordan, and that on the River of Reuben near Yebnah. 
King Richard captured a caravan from Cairo near 
Beersheba,f consisting of horses, mules, and camels laden 
with spices, gold and silver, silk cloaks, purple and 
scarlet robes, arms and weapons, coats of mail, 
cushions, pavilions and tents, biscuit, bread, barley, 
grain, meal, conserves, and medicines, with basins, 
bladders, chess boards, silver dishes, candlesticks, 
pepper, cinnamon, sugar, and wax. The camels and 
dromedaries numbered four thousand seven hundred in 
all, with innumerable mules, and one thousand seven 
hundred horses of the Turkish guards. 

The army of the Kings of Jerusalem also included 
native troops. The Maronites were reputed good 

ihe Syrian women, and to live on the pilgrims, charging them extortionate 
prices, and calling them " fools " (p. 57). See opposite, Turkopoles. 

* Joynville, p. 404, Bonn's Chronicles of the Crusades. 

t feoff, de Vinsaitf, vi, 3, 4. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 211 

archers. The Turkopoles* were light armed native horse, 
with long cane lances such as still are used by Arabs.t 
The Royal Domain, according to the Assizes, could 
raise five hundred and seventy-seven knights and five 
thousand and twenty-five men-at-arms the latter pro- 
vided by the churches and the burghers. Tripoli sent 
one hundred knights, and Antioch the same. The 
Prince of Edessa mustered five hundred knights ; the 
total force, including the Templars and Hospitallers, and 
native auxiliaries, did not exceed twenty-five thousand, 
not counting the armies sent from time to time from 
Europe in the various Crusades. 

A register was kept of the horses and mules which 
could be mustered for war. The supply came not only 
from Syria and Cyprus, but from Armenia, where a 
small but hardy breed has always been famous. These 
could not have supported the later heavy armed knights, 
but were efficient for light armed men in mail, King 
Richard, however, brought all his horses from England. 
High prices were given for blood horses of the Kurds 
and Persians. 

The siege towers and mangonels have already been 
noticed. They could be taken down, packed, and re- 
moved to other towns. The towers received names like 
" Mauvoisin," " Mategriffen," and " Berefred." The 
parties undermining or battering the walls worked under 
cats and cercleia, which were galleries or shields of 
hurdles covered with hides. \ The Greek fire, which 

* That is, Turkopouloi or " Turk-sons." 

t Rey, Colonies Franques, pp. 32-44, 109-10. 

t faff' d Vinsauf, iii, 8. 



212 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

seems to have been regarded as very mysterious be- 
cause it could only be put out with sand, and would 
float burning down stream, was destructive to these 
machines. It was carried in bladders, and sometimes 
apparently shot from arrows, or thrown in barrels, and 
in bombs of earthenware, with a detonating fuse. The 
main component was petroleum, brought from the wells 
of Baku, to which orpiment and sulphide of arsenic were 
added. It had long been known to the Mongols of 
Central Asia and the Greeks. Philip II took some of it 
home from Acre, and therewith destroyed the English 
fleet at Dieppe ; but the composition was long a secret 
to the Franks, whose siege towers, balistae, and man- 
gonels were also borrowed from the Greeks, and traced 
back with little change to those employed for instance 
by Alexander the Great against Tyre. 

A few words on the Navy* will conclude the present 
enquiry. The Mediterranean was full of pirates, both 
Christian and Moslem, and the trading fleets encoun- 
tered great dangers, unless escorted by fighting vessels. 
Of the great Venetian passenger-galleys, in the thirteenth 
century, some account will be given later. The earlier 
ships were small, and as many as eighty could anchor in 
the small port of Acre.f The rights of shipwrecked 
persons were secured by the laws of the kingdom, and 
by special grants. The ships built in Syria were mainly 
of European wood, as suitable timbers were not easily 
found in the East. The Templars and Hospitallers had 

* See Rey, Colonies Franques, pp. 150-164. 
t 7heodorich, p. 60, English translation. 



THE FRANK LIFE IN PALESTINE. 213 

ships, and the latter a commander of the sea. Light- 
houses, with beacon fires, were established at Latakia, 
Gebal, Tyre, Acre, and other ports. Signal fires were 
indeed much used, and even carrier pigeons by besieged 
towns, as well as divers (who were sometimes caught 
in nets), and ships sailing under false colours, to throw 
provisions into the ports. 

Among the earlier trading or passenger vessels are 
mentioned galleons, dromonds, and cats.* The galleons 
were from an hundred to a hundred and thirty feet long, 
and about twenty in greatest beam ; they had one bank 
of oars, and a crew of one hundred men. The cats were 
smaller, and the saities were swift vessels, about fifty 
feet long, with ten to fifteen pairs of oars, drawing little 
\vater, and built of pine, elm, or cedar, for coasting. The 
dromons, or dromonds, were large, heavy, and slower 
than galleys,f but, like the galleys, had square sails, as 
well as two rows of oars : twenty-five pairs of the latter 
each manned by two men propelled the dromons. 
Barges and smacks carried provisions and munitions of 
war ; and barbotes were used in 1188, which were very 
flat-bottomed, and built in the harbour of Tyre, to run 
close to land inside the Egyptian fleet. Other vessels 
called gameles (or camels), nefs (navis), busses, and buze 
nefs, were used for merchandise and for passengers 
the busses having two or three masts, arid some 500 
tons burden : the tarides and salandres were also ships 
for commerce ; and the huissier, or urser, was a horse 

* Saeii'ulf, p. 8, English translation. 

t feoff, de Vinsauf, I, 34, 6 1 ; II, 26; IV, 5. 



214 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

boat. In the thirteenth century the French ships 
carried, in some .cases, five hundred persons' on board.* 
The Latins had also boats on the Sea of Galilee, and on 
the Dead Sea crossing to Kerak. The European fleets 
included not only those of the Italians, Marseilleise, and 
Danes, but in the third Crusade those of the Prisons 
and English. 

The fighting galleys, with outriggers for the oars, 
sometimes had from fifty to ninety oars each side, in 
two banks, and the fighting men stood on deck above, 
protected with shields. Like the galleys with which the 
Carthaginians defeated the Romans, the Frank galleys 
had iron beaks. At the sound of the trumpet they 
charged the enemy, and sank it, or grappled with it, and, 
by diving under, the sailors bound the rudder with ropes. 
Arrows, sling stones, and Greek fire poured on the 
assailants : the latter was extinguished with sand ; 
many heavy armed men, unable to swim, were often 
thrown into the sea ; and hand-to-hand fighting on deck 
decided the victory. 

This, briefly sketched, was the life of the Latins in 
the East, in peace and war, among high and low, clerics 
and teymen ; but we must not forget that they were 
always few among the many native subjects of the King 
of Jerusalem a ruling caste among strangers ; and to 
the life arid customs of the natives our attention is 
equally due. 



* Joynville, p. 508, Bohn's Chron. of Crusades ; Jeoff. de Vittsauj, I, 
345 Hi 41- 



215 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE NATIVE LIFE IN PALESTINE. 

FROM the earliest age of Christianity the traditions of 
Italy had differed from those of the East, and open 
rupture would have occurred in the second centuiy, con- 
cerning the question of Easter, but for Irenaeus. Thence- 
forth the two great Churches went on their own ways, 
and the schism grew ever wider : in the fourth century 
the customs of the East and West already differed 
greatly. The fierce Trinitarian controversies then rent 
the Churches, and Arian and Orthodox prevailed alter- 
nately in the empire ; but the Filioque clause though 
added by the third Synod of Toledo in 589 A.D. was 
still unnoticed by the Creed of Gaul in the seventh 
century. Half a century before Charlemagne's acces- 
sion Gregory II defended the use of images, and Greece 
and Italy fought the question out at Ravenna. The 
separation of the two Churches was complete before 
800 A.D. ; and for a time when Saracen fleets entered 
the Tiber in 846 A.D. it seemed as if Islam were 
destined to destroy both alike ; but Franks and Greeks 
united, under the Eastern emperor who ruled all 
Southern Italy in 871. Meanwhile the contests of 



216 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



the Iconoclasts had resulted in the triumph of the 
Empress Irene, who defined the adoration to be paid 
to pictures, with incense, salutations, and candles, but 
forbade carved images, or pictures of the Deity. Thus 
the Church of Byzantium denounced the Church of 
Rome as idolatrous, because it still used statues, such 
as Leo the Isaurian had cast down from the Gate of 
Byzantium in 726 A.D. Yet St. Augustine had held 
that those who paid religious reverence to pictures 
were condemned by the Church at large. In 1054 A.D. 
the Pope had hurled his anathema at the Church of 
Constantinople, and by Godfrey the Greeks were dis- 
established for a century in Syria. 

But separation had not rid the Papacy from home 
troubles caused by Eastern heresy. The later followers 
of Paul of Samosata expelled from the Patriarchate of 
Antioch in 270 A.D. nourished the Sabellian heresy, 
which taught that Christ was but a man inspired, and 
they were persecuted by Greek emperors after their 
establishment in Armenia and Pontus in 660 A.D, 
Transplanted to Thrace, in the eighth century, they 
reached Sicily and even Rome ; they influenced .the 
Bulgarians, and spread to Milan, and beyond the Alps ; 
and, as Albigenses, they diverted the zeal of Western 
Christians, and often occupied the attention of the 
Popes, almost to the exclusion of more important 
efforts in Asia. 

The rigid dogmatism of the Greeks had caused the 
separation, in Western Asia, of the various churches. 
Though united against Rome, as to the nature of the 



( 



THE NATIVE LIFE IN PALESTINE. 217 

Holy Spirit, they were divided among themselves as to 
the nature of the Son. The minds of Asiatic Christians 
were long influenced by two opposite teachings : that of 
the Nazarenes of Bashan, who believed that Jesus was a 
human prophet ; and that of the Gnostics of Syria and 
Alexandria Saturninus and Basilidcs who regarded 
Christ as not truly human at all. The Church decided 
that both views were heresy, and that Jesus was both 
human and divine. The question then raised was 
whether this nature was single or double, and whether 
actuated by a single or double will. Each question was- 
answered in turn by the Church, in favour of the com- 
plex nature. Nestor, a Syrian, but Patriarch of Con- 
stantinople, doubted if the Virgin might be called the 
" Mother of God." The zeal of Cyril of Alexandria 
induced the Council of Ephesus to condemn him 
unheard in 431 A.D. The followers of Nestor withdrew 
to Nisibis, not far from Nineveh, and established a 
centre of learning which eclipsed that of Edcssa two 
centuries later. Their missionaries carried a knowledge 
of letters into Central Asia ; they spread to North India, 
Ceylon, and Malabar ; and the Nestorian Church was 
found in China as early as 636 A.D. They, like the 
Sabellians, taught that the human Jesus, born of Mary, 
was distinct from the Spirit Christ who dwelt withia 
Him. 

The enemies of Nestor, led by Eutyches, flew to the 
other extreme, and preached a single nature, which the 
Council of Chalcedon, in 451 A.D., declared to be equally 
heretical. Some of the Syrians, obeying this decision, 

Q 



:z 1 8 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

remained in communion with the Greeks, and were 
:known later as Melchites, or those of .the " king's 
party." But the majority followed Eutyches ; and 
Jacob Baradaeus, Bishop of Edessa in the next century, 
converted Armenians, Copts, and Abyssinians, to mono- 
physite doctrines. Meanwhile a new solution of the 
problem was proffered in the Lebanon; where the 
Christians of Apamea taught that though the nature of 
1 Christ was double His will was single. In the seventh 
century they were known as Maronites, from Maro their 
'first bishop.* Their dogma was decreed heretical by 
the sixth General Council in 680 A.D.t Thus when the 
'Latins entered Syria, in the twelfth century, they found 

.the native churches divided into four great bodies. The 
orthodox Greeks of Byzantium, and the Syrians called 

: Melchites, were separated from the Nestorians of Persia, 
and of Eastern Mesopotamia ; the Monophysite Jacobites 
of Syria followed Jacob Baradaeus, and, with the Armen- 
ian?, relied on the decision of the Council of 449 A.D., 
-which confirmed the views of Eutyches, and which was 
revoked at Chalcedon : while the Monothelite Maronites 

., formed yet a fourth communion. 

<Xke influence of the Popes was directed to the recon- 

- ciliation with Rome of these churches denounced by the 
Greeks. In 1182 A.D. the Maronitcs renounced their 

* The Marcnitcs claim to be named from Mar Marun (abcut 400 A.n. ) 
a saint whose relics were shown at Apamea, and whose hermitage is on the 
east bank of the Orontes, south of Einesa, a rcck-cut monastery. The 
patriarch John Maron (686-707 A.n. ) claimed (he see of Anticch. 
The Emperor Heraclius had favoured the Monothelite doctrine, but the 
Maronites were known later as Mardi or " rebels." The present patriarch 
,a:esides at the monastery of Kanobin. 

ft Jacques de Vitry, p. 79, English translation. 



THE NATIVE LIFE IN PALESTINE. 219 

special dogma, and being allowed to retain their married 
clergy they accepted the Papal protection. In 1237 A.D. 
Gregory IX was informed that a Jacobite patriarch at 
Jerusalem, and an archbishop from Egypt, with another 
who was Nestorian, had been converted.* Yet earlier, 
in 1206, the Armenian King Leo II accepted the Latin 
rites, and asked for plenary indulgence from Innocent 
III ; but seven years later the same Pope had to com- 
plain that the same king drove out the Latin priests. 
This was the utmost that missionary zeal, and papal 
policy, effected.f The eastern Churches, all except the 
Maronites, remained independent of each other, and 
unreconciled with Rome. Armenians, Copts, Georgians 
Jacobites, Abyssinians, and Nestorians, still taught that 
Christ did not receive His body of the " substance of His 
mother." Greeks, and Orthodox Syrians, still held their 
separate Easter, and condemned what they called the 
image worship of Rome. 

In the estimation of the Latins the Jacobitest held 
the first place, as the most important opponents of the 
Greeks, and the most learned of Orientals. They were 
the native Christian Church, and their apparent con- 
formity was rewarded with recognition of their bishops 
as suffragans of the Latin hierarchy ; but they retained 
the ancient rite of circumcision, which the Nazarenes 
had so strictly observed : they still blew their rams' 
horns like the Jews at festivals. Their Patriarch of 

* Regesta, Ncs. 1075. t Ditto, Ncs. 817, 862. 

+ Key, Colonies Pratiques, pp. 75-82. 

7'heottorich, p. 14, English translation. Jacques de Vitry, \\ 7~, 
English translatcin. 

Q 2 



220 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Antioch lived at the Bar Saurna monastery, on the 
Euphrates, named from the zealous disciple of Nestor, 
who was ejected from his chair at Edessa, and founded 
the great school of Nisibis. In Jerusalem they held the 
Chapel of St. James, under the belfry of the Holy 
Sepulchre Cathedral. Their vestments are no doubt 
but little changed the Patriarch wearing cloth of gold, 
with a cowl of the same. 

The Nestorians were chiefly found in Persia, and further 
east, but also in Cyprus and at Tripoli, Gebal, Beirut 
and Acre. Their famous school in Tripoli produced 
Bar Hebraeus, who will be mentioned later. As the 
Syrians preserved Syriac for their sacred language, so 
the Nestorians preserved an Aramaic dialect, then 
known as Chaldean. Their Sacrament was according 
to the Greek rite, and their archbishopric of the west 
included Syria, Palestine, and Asia Minor, Cilicia, and 
Cyprus. 

The Armenians were mainly known to the Princes of 
Edessa and Antioch, and became important allies in the 
thirteenth century, when the Latin power increased in 
their country. Their priests were bound to marry, yet 
they were highly esteemed in Rome ; and some of their 
leaders advocated union with the Latin church. The 
Assizes of Jerusalem were translated, in 1265 A.D., into 
Armenian ; and, as early as the middle of the twelfth 
century, the influence of the Normans was so strong 
in Armenia that the Court of the King was organised 
in imitation of that of Edessa. The power of the 
Templars increased in Armenia, through the royal 



THE NATIVE LIFE IN PALESTINE. 221 

favour, until their own want of moderation led to their 
expulsion. The gigantic mitre of an Armenian patriarch, 
robed in silver cope lined with rose satin, dwarfed the 
small and angular Norman mitre of the Latin bishops, 
in the great ceremonies in which all Christians joined ; 
the nasal chanting unaccompanied by music of their 
masses, was perhaps hurried and irreverent even as now ; 
but the long white beards, and portly persons of their 
priests, gave them a venerable air of Oriental dignity. 
Their great church in Jerusalem was St. James on Sion. 

The Armenians were distinct from other Christians in 
not mingling water with the wine of the Eucharist, and 
they observed the Nativity of Christ as a fast not as a 
feast, keeping the Epiphany instead as a festival. These 
customs still distinguish them, and though derived by 
them from Eutyches, were based on the early Gnosticism 
which regarded Christ as having only a spiritual body 
a belief against which many of the Fathers wrote, 
although it was in a measure supported by Clement 
of Alexandria. The mingled cup is traced among 
Christians of the East to the second century, but 
Cyprian allows that the practice was not then .uni- 
versally followed.* 

The Coptic monophysites from Egypt were also 
represented at Jerusalem ; but in small numbers. 
Their bishop wore a crown like the Greek patiiarchs ; 
their monks wore white pointed cowls. . They still 
preserved the ancient " kiss of peace," which was not 

* Jacques de Vitrv, p. 82, English translation. This practice of the 
Armenians was condemned in the Council of Constantinople in 691 A.D. 



222 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

yet extinct in the West ; and like the Armenians they 
sprinkled the congregation with rose-water from silver 
vessels. The Georgians from the Caucasus formed another 
small community in the Holy City,* which their pilgrims 
had visited already in the eleventh century. They 
possessed the Abbey of the Cross, west of Jerusalem, 
where ancient mosaics still remain, perhaps as old as, or 
older than, the twelfth century. The legend of the 
Cross they localised there, and claimed to show a 
fragment of the Sacred Wood. They were said to come 
from the " Land of Feminie," where Amazons were 
believed still to ride out to war. In Northern Syria 
sixty Georgian monks dwelt in the ancient monastery 
of St. Simeon ; and after Hattin they took the place of 
Latin hermits, in the caves and chapels of the Quaran- 
tania precipices over Jericho. A monastery of these 
Iberians, as they Avere otherwise called, was built on the 
banks of Jordan, and washed away by floods before 
1185 A.D. Here they still practised the old penance of 
standing on pillars, like St. Simon Stylites, as well as in 
Northern Syria, and at Satalia in Asia Minorf ; further 
west at the monastery of St. Chrysostom now Tell el 
Kursi, south of Jericho other Iberian ascetics gathered, 
living side by side with the Greeks of St. John on Jordan, 
and the Latins of Calamon. The Latins called the 
Georgians " Christians of the Girdle." 

The Abyssinian Christians are not noticed by the 
mediaeval writers but were found in Jerusalem in the 

* Key, Colonies Franqnes, p. 93 ; City of Jerusalem, p. 22, English 
translation ; Jacques de Vilry, p. 83, English translation, 
t Phocas, p. 27, English translation. 



THE NATIVE LIFE IN PALESTINE, 22 j 

fifteenth century by Felix Fabri. Like the Georgians they 
circumcised ; and they are said not to have baptised but 
to have branded their children on the face. This African, 
custom is still preserved among them. It is to them 
probably that Jacques de Vitry refers, though confusing;, 
them with the Syrian Jacobites.* 

These were the native churches separated from the^ 
Greeks. The Syrian Greeks had little of the Aryan blood 
in their veins, being mainly of Arab or Syrian race: they 
shut up their wives like other Orientals, and their 
daughters were veiledf ; but they were Greek by religion, . 
and Greek in language, as regarded their clergy at leasL- 
They bitterly resented the intrusion of the Latin clergy, 
and obeyed their own patriarchs of Jerusalem and 
Antioch. But the Greek monks of Sinai were more 
subservient, and their abbot was a suffragan of the Latin? 
Archbishop of Petra and Kerak. The Princes of 
AntiochJ were willing, but unable in face of the Legate's* 
opposition, to restore to the Greeks their possessions ; 
but about 1240 a Greek Patriarch who professed sub- 
mission to the Pope was established for a time. A_ 
small sect of Greek Catholics was gradually formed.',, 
and still remains in existence with Catholic Armenians. 
This was, however, not the triumph aimed at by the. 
Roman policy, and in 1187 the Greeks regained their, 
power, tolerated by Saladin, and appropriating Latins 
churches left deserted. In 1160 the Latin Patriarchs 
asked the commands of Alexander III as to these 

* Jacques de Vitry, p. 75, English translation. 
+ Jacques de Vitry, p. 18, English translation. 
J Rty, Colonies Franqites, p. 9. 



224 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

schismatics,* who were placed in an inferior position to 
the Jacobites. In the reign of Baldwin I they had still 
a monastery and an abbot, side by side with the Latins 
on Tabor,f where the cave of Melchisadec was shown, 
and the supposed site of his meeting with Abraham. 
Their monastery of St. Saba, in the Judean desert, was 
hallowed by the bones of John of Damascus, and the 
same order had its house in Jerusalem. J South of 
Bethlehem also their monastery of St. Chariton held the 
remains of seven hundred fathers, which exhaled " a 
wondrous perfume." The abbot of St. Saba was 
allowed a lamp in the Sepulchre for the Holy Fire, with 
other Greek dignitaries whose altar was west of the 
Tomb. The caves on the eastern cliff of the Kidron 
-\vere inhabited by Greek, as well as by Armenian and 
Jacobite hermits. The hermitage of St. Euthymius, east 
of St. Saba, was restored from ruins in 1185 A.D., at the 
. site now called Mird ; and in the Kelt Valley was St. 
John of Chozeboth, with a small chapel, the frescoes of 
which still remain. These, with the larger mon- 
astery of St. John on Jordan, are all the buildings 
mentioned by Greek pilgrims ; and the Latin writers 
generally abstain from any notice of schismatic holy 
places. . 

* Regesla, No. 357. 

t Abbot Daniel, p. 68, English translation. 

J Ditto, pp. 3, 18, 34. 

' Phocas, pp. 14, 20, 25, English translation. These frescoes (see Mem. 
Stirvcy West. Pal., Ill, p. 192) at Deir Wady Kelt represent St. Athanasius 
'of Mount Athcs, St. John of Chozeboth, St. Gerasmius of Calamon, 
Joachim the Virgin's father, and pictures of the Entombment, the death 
of the Virgin, the Last Judgment, and the Washing of the Disciples' 
feet, as I ascertained from the inscriptions in 1^73. 



THE NATIVE LIFE IN PALESTINE. 225 

The greater number of the native Christians lived 
in the Lebanon even as far east as Sardenai near 
Damascus and in the Principalities of Antioch and 
Edessa, as well as in Armenia. In Palestine itself the 
population was mainly Moslem in the villages, with 
Greeks and Jacobites in the towns. The Moslems also 
were divided among themselves, by differences of religious 
faith ; and the few Je\vs who dared to live among the 
Normans were equally divided from the Samaritans 
scattered throughout Palestine. 

Religious divisions had arisen in Islam as soon as the 
Prophet died. After the conquest of Syria, and the 
death of Omar, the Khalifs of Damascus maintained 
the simple orthodoxy of Islam, although descended, net 
from the Prophet, but from his conquered enemy Abu 
Sofian, of the Omeiyah family of the Koreish. They 
reigned in Syria till 749 A.D., when the last of them was 
defeated by the Baghdad Khalif Abu-el-Abbas es- 
Suffah, descended from the prophet's uncle ; but by the 
Abbaside family the true creed was equally maintained. 
Among Persian Moslems who had followed Aly 
(Muhammad's cousin german and son-in-law) and who 
did not accept the first three great Khalifs, preceding 
him, but fought for his son till he resigned in 660 A.D., 
strange philosophic views developed, and mysticism 
gathered round the names, not only of the Prophet or of 
Aly, but of Hasan and Hosein, and of the eight Imams 
whom the Shiah acknowledged as true successors, down 
to El Mahdi the Muhammadan Messiah, who is ytt 
expected to appear again on earth. 



226 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

The schism was political and racial as well as religious, 
and the Shiah or " followers " of Aly were mostly Per- 
sians, who hated the Arab conquerors, and rejected their 
Sunna or " customs," in favour of their own mystic com- 
ments on the Koran, which finally raised the unhappy 
Aly to the rank of a deity. The doctrine of a future 
Saviour was not taken from Christian teaching, but from 
the Persian expectation of a mystic future hero ; and 
just as the earlier Manicheans of Persia had mingled, in 
a strange eclectic system, the teaching of Buddhists and 
Mazdeans with their own Gnostic beliefs, so too the 
Moslem philosophic and mystic sects mingled Budd- 
hism, and Mazdeism, and Gnostic Christianity, with the 
plain teaching of the Arab prophet. It resulted from 
a belief in the coming of the Mahdi the " guided one " 
who was to be also the Guide that Moslem sects, time 
after time, split off from the main body of believers, 
because in some Khalif or Imam they held that the 
Mahdi had at last appeared. It is the same cause 
which, in our own age, separates the Babis of Persia, 
and the Soudan Moslems, from their orthodox brethren. 

But another tendency underlay the heretic teaching of 
other thinkers. Educated Arabs were attracted by the 
Greek philosophy, preserved in Syriac translations by 
the learned Nestorians of Nisibis and Edessa. The 
reign of El Mamun, the seventh Abbaside Khalif, was 
the palmy age of Arab literary culture: science, phil- 
ology, poetry, music, history, and archaeology, flourished 
equally : Greek and Persian, as well as Arab, books 
were stored in libraries : Sanskrit, Aramaic, and Syriac 



THE NATIVE LIFE IN PALESTINE. 227 

writings, were translated : the philosophy of Aristotle 
and Plato became known to Moslems ; and though free 
thought was discouraged by the tenth Khalif of Baghdad 

El Mutawakkil in the latter part of the ninth century, 
it was not extirpated ; the companions of the Epicurean 
Omar Khiyam, whatever their public teaching might 
be, were Moslem sceptics of the eleventh century. In 
the time of El Mamun Aristotle, as preserved by the 
Nestorian.s, was translated into Arabic, and the Neo- 
Platonic speculations became familiar ; while the Sufis, 
or Sophists, were attracted by the Buddhist doctrines, 
at the same early period of cultured thought. In El 
Ghazali both influences were combined, but the scep- 
ticism of this Persian disciple of the ancients, who 
died in 1 1 1 1 A.D., led to the revolt of the orthodox 
against philosophy, which, henceforth dying out in Asia, 
flourished only in Spain. The Arabs added little that 
was new, but they became imbued with the spirit of the 
Greek, Persian, and Indian culture, just as their architec- 
ture was founded on that of the nations they conquered, 
and their numerals borrowed from India and given to 
Europe. 

Like the Buddhists they believed that philosophic 
truth could never be attained by the masses of the 
people, and that some form of creed was necessary 
for the many, from which the few were free. This 
was the basis of the various systems which organized 
an initiation in various grades. The Batenin, or " Eso- 
teric" teachers, appeared as early as 700 A.D., in the 
followers of Hasan of Basrah. Mutazali, Khatebi, 



228 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



Karmathians, Ismail iyeh, and other sects which fol- 
lowed, while teaching a syncretic dogma, were at 
heart sceptics, who believed in neither God nor 
prophet. Islam cast out these heretics, and perse- 
cuted them ; but their influence was sufficient to rend 
the Moslem world. From the orthodox centre of 
Baghdad they fled to Syria and Egypt, and so dis- 
seminated schism in the west. 

Among the earliest of these sectarians were the 
Ismailiyeh, who arose among the Persian Shiah, and 
recognised as their reincarnate leader Ismail the sixth 
Imam. In the ninth century they became established 
in Syria, and the Fatimite Khalifs of Egypt descended 
from a firm believer in their system. Thus over Africa, 
and all the Egyptian dominions, their heresy flourished ; 
and in the eleventh century the townsmen of Syria were 
mainly Shiah. Abdallah, their great teacher, was a 
sceptic, well versed in many religions, and he taught a 
system which aimed at attracting men of every faith, 
and at leading them, through seven grades of initiation, 
to the final result of the denial of all belief. Only two 
realities existed so he taught the favoured few the 
active and the passive, the male and female principles of 
nature which were the source of being. 

Side by side with the Ismailiyeh rose the Nuseiriyeh. 
They sprang from the powerful Karmathian sect of 
Persia, which for a while, in the ninth century A.D., 
reduced to tribute Arabia, Syria, and Egypt ; and they 
took their name from an Imam El Faraj, of the town of 
Nasrana, whom they called El Nuseiri. In the wild 



THE NATIVE LIFE IN PALESTINE. 229 

glens of Lebanon their adherents still found shelter, when 
their po\ver was overthrown. 

The eleventh century witnessed the appearance of 
two other heresies far more formidable that of the 
Assassins, and that of the Druzes. Three ambitious 
sceptics swore brotherhood in Persia. The first was 
Omar Khiyarn the poet, the second was Nizam el 
Mulk, who became the vizir of the Turkish Sultan 
Melek Shah, the third was Hasan el Homeiri, founder 
of a secret sect which, in the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries, was feared in Syria by Christian and Moslem 
alike followers of the Sheikh of the Mountain, called 
Hashshashin, "hemp smokers" or Assassins. All these 
three comrades were initiated into the highest order 
of the Ismailiyeh, and as such had no religious belief 
at all. 

This alliance did not long continue, when the Assassin 
strove and failed to supplant the vizir. Melek Shah and 
Nizam el Mulk were among his first victims, for in 1090 
he seized the Castle of Alamut in Irak, and gathered 
disciples. Near the impregnable cliffs of Alamut, " the 
Eagles' Nest," were fair gardens in a valley watered by 
springs and conduits, and peopled by the fairest of 
Persian girls. Among the wild youths of the region, 
Hasan sought for such as seemed to be daring and 
reliable, and promised them the joys of Paradise as the 
reward of obedience. They drank the drug he offered 
them, and waked to find between the mountains fair 
lawns and flowers, and shady trees, and pleasant kiosques 
with pictures, and gilded bowers, and tapestries of silk, 



230 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

and pillows of down. Wine and fruits lay on the tables, 
and beautiful women gaily dressed sported, and sang the 
songs of love, with instruments of music in their hands. 
It was Paradise, with living Houris waiting for the brave ; 
and so a few short days of happiness passed swiftly by, 
and the initiate woke again in the grim castle at the 
valley mouth. Was it a dream, due only to the hemp 
he smoked, or a reality ? It matters not ; though 
nothing now remains to show that such a fairyland 
existed, yet Marco Polo firmly held it did. The new 
disciple or fedawt, " the devoted one," from whom a 
blind unquestioning obedience was exacted, was pro- 
mised that he once again should enter Paradise when 
his desperate task was done. The secrets of Hasan 
were known only to the rafik or "companion": the 
intelligence needful for political schemes was supplied 
by the dai or "missionary," who sought converts in 
distant regions, preaching the strange mysticism which 
the leaders knew to be only delusion. The fcdaivi 
neither knew nor cared for anything save Paradise the 
secret confided to him by his master. Thus an unscru- 
pulous sceptic organised murder. He died in 1124 A.D. ; 
but the sect lived on until suppressed in 1254 A.D. by 
Mangu Khan. By the middle of the twelfth century 
their Sheikh was established in the rugged Lebanon, 
east of Tripoli, and was known to the Latins as the 
" Old Man of the Mountain " ; and their first victim was 
the Khalif of Egypt in 1149 A.D. Raymond of Tripoli, 
and Conrad of Montferrat also fell their victims, with 
two other Khalifs, and various Arab and Turkish Emirs. 



THE NATIVE LIFE IN PALESTINE. 231 



They attempted Saladin's life in 1174, and at Ezzaz in 
Syria in 1176, and that of Edward of England in 1272. 
Bibars, the cruel conqueror, was not loth to use their 
daggers ; and neither creed nor race protected the victim 
of their evil designs. 

The Druze heresy, if yet wilder in its teaching, was 
far less dangerous in its moral aims. El Hakem, the 
Fatimite Khalif in Egypt, born in 985 A.U., was not 
twelve years old when he acceded, and his early years 
were marked by revolts in Syria, and intrigues of the 
provincial governors. After fourteen years he beheaded 
the eunuch Barjewan, his tyrannical vizir, and began to 
rule for himself. He belonged, like his ancestors, to the 
Ismailiyeh sect ; but symptoms of insanity soon showed 
themselves in the fantastic character of his regulations. 
Many of the most respected Sunnees were put to death, 
and Jews and Christians were persecuted, until a revolt 
in 1007 A.D. for a time induced some moderation. Three 
years later, however, the Jerusalem churches were des- 
troyed by his order ; and in 1014 all women were 
ordered to remain in their houses, and shoemakers for- 
bidden to make them shoes. It was about this time that 
Persian mystics began to trade upon his crazy fancies, 
and Muhammad ed Derazi persuaded El Hakem that he 
was not only Khalif of Islam, but an incarnation of 
deity the Mahdi himself. The Egyptians drove out 
Ed Derazi, who fled to Mount Hermon ; but his master 
Hamzah of Khorassan, had followed him when he estab- 
lished himself in El Hakem's service, and he continued 
to influence the crazy Khalif. The pilgrimage to Mecca 



232 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

was discontinued, and Moslem customs disregarded. At 
length at the age of thirty-six, after twenty-four years of 
evil government, the manias of El Hakem became in- 
tolerable, and he was strangled by his sister's order, in 
his retirement on Jebel Mokattam near Cairo. 

Hamzah and his followers, persecuted by the new 
Khalif El Hakem's son, fled to join Ed Derazi in Syria, 
where the Ismailiyeh dogmas had attracted many 
among the rude and ignorant mountain tribes. Ham- 
zah denounced Ed Derazi to these, and preached that 
El Hakem would return once more. The year following 
he too disappeared, leaving a new heresy in Islam having 
its centre in the glens of Hermon.* The religion of the 
Druzes was a mystery to the uninitiated ; and Jews and 
Christians told strange stories about them ; but it is 
known to us as explained in works attributed to Ham- 
zah, and .contains little to distinguish it from Ismailiyeh 
beliefs, except the dogma of El Hakem's divinity. It 
aimed at gathering in Jew, Christian, Manichean, and 
Moslem, in one great body to each proclaiming that 
his faith was but a part of truth. Muhammad himself 
had so regarded the partial revelations which preceded 
him ; but Muhammad was sincere, and the leaders of 
the Druzes accepted all men because they believed 
in no form of faith themselves. So vigorous was the 
preaching of the missionaries, sent out from Hermon by 
I]feha-ed-Din, successor of Hamzah, that in the twelfth 
century the sect had spread through Syria and Persia, 
to Ghuzni and India, to Arabia and Egypt, and even 

.. . * See Sylvestre de Sacy's Religion des Druzes, and Churchill's Lebanon. 



THE NATIVE LIFE IN PALESTINE. 233 

to Constantinople. It is not impossible that the 
Templars were influenced, either by Druze teaching, 
or by some other form of the Ismail iy eh doctrines, 
while they held the Assassins of the Lebanon to tribute. 
The doctrines of Hamzah were founded on the 
Platonic teaching of the phenomenon and the idea. 
His professed belief was in a series of incarnations of 
the Deity in historic persons accompanied by incar- 
nations of the Spirit in contemporary prophets. Abra- 
ham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, and El Hakem, were 
the Divine incarnations : Ishmael, Aaron, Simon Peter, 
Aly, and Hamzah, were the human beings in whom 
the Spirit had dwelt. To the Jew the Druzes spoke 
of Abraham and Ishmael, Moses and Aaron : to the 
Christian they spoke of Jesus and Simon Peter ; to 
Moslems of Muhammad and Aly : and to their own 
chief disciples of El Hakem and Hamzah the last and 
greatest manifestations on earth. They inculcated on 
the uninitiated obedience to the seven commands of 
Hamzah prayer, sacrifice, tithes, fasting, pilgrimage, 
the holy war, and submission ; and every mystic idea 
found in any system then known in Asia was incor- 
porated. Transmigration of souls was borrowed from 
the older philosophies of Greece and India, with the 
attainment of the Imamat, when the perfect are no 
more born in the flesh the Buddhist Nirvana. All 
former faiths were but types and allegories : yet the 
Resurrection was to reward the pious after a time of 
trouble, such as Hebrew prophets and Persian followers 
of Zoroaster had foretold. 

R 



234 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

There is much in the Druze system to connect it with 
the Buddhism of Central Asia. They said that El Hakem 
would re-appear, leading an army from their Holy Land 
in China, to which the good Druze was carried by 
angels when he died : a judgment of the wicked, and a 
temporal reign of El Hakem, were then to follow. They 
taught that the Evil Spirit had also been incarnate in 
the various ages, to oppose the divine persons and 
prophets ; and that his last appearance was in the very 
Ed Derazi from whom the name by which they were 
called by others was taken, but who among themselves 
was cursed as Hamzah's enemy, and called El Ajal, " the 
Calf," by a play on the title of El Akal, " the Doctor," 
which he claimed. This was the origin of the brazen 
calf perhaps a relic of older paganism which they kept 
in their Klialwehs, or solitary meeting places, only to 
treat with insult and contempt. Ed Derazi was the 
incarnation of Satan and Iblis, the Antichrist, and the 
Rival. Hamzah was the Imam, the Mediator, the Book, 
the Kiblah, the flower, the trumpet, the banner, the Spirit, 
the camel, and John the Baptist. Such wild symbolism 
was based on the dogma of re-incarnation. The details 
are of little interest, because the teaching was not a real 
belief. They included Persian archangels, cabalistic 
values of mystic numbers, parables, and philosophic 
speculations, quotations from the Gospels, and allegoric 
explanations of the Koran. It was a mighty mingling 
of every form of dogma known in Asia, with the new 
figures of El Hakem and Hamzah ; but it was designed 
to be a solvent which, by admitting all to the lower 



. THE NATIVE LIFE IN PALESTINE.' 235 

degrees of knowledge, should lead the few to the " Con- 
cealed Destruction," which was the real and secret teach- 
ing of Hamzah and his heirs. 

The Book of the " Concealed Destruction " also exists, 
teaching a very different doctrine from the openly 
avowed Druze catechism of the ignorant. Hamzah 
believed that no religion of any kind was true ; and to 
the leaders he gave the Seven Laws, which abrogated 
those prescribed to their followers. These were: Truth, 
its Concealment when needful, Mutual Aid, Renuncia- 
tion of all Dogma, the Oneness of God, Submission to His 
Will, and Resignation to Fate. Hence- it arose that the 
Druze was commanded to agree with each sectarian 
Jew, Christian, Moslem, or Buddhist in turn : to deny 
his faith : to use no ceremonies or prayers : to be 
chaste and sober : and to do no evil : but to despise in 
his heart the errors of the ignorant. 

This system was not of Arab origin, nor were the 
Hermon Druzes of Arab race. They were in great 
measure of Persian stock ; and their women wore the 
silver horn beneath the veil, projecting forward from the 
forehead, a costume which was usual among tribes of 
the Oxus and Caspian.* They were secluded as among 
Moslems, but the secrets of initiation were not confined 
to men. There were women among the leaders of the 
sect, to whom the final teaching was also imparted. 
'The Druze ascetics dwelt in solitary hermitages, lying 
on mats with stone pillows, dressed in wool with girdles 
like the monks, and eating dry bread and raisins. The 

* Journal Royal Asiatic Society ', April, 1 885, p. 202. 

R 2 



236 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

secret symbol by which the Druzes recognised each 
other was the fig, which was also a Manichean emblem* 
of a secret and abominable worship. The Christian 
dogmas of the Druzes appear indeed to have been 
mainly based on the teaching of Manes. 

These, then, were the mystic and sceptical sects which 
the Crusaders found in Syria. The Shiah Moslems were 
mainly found in the mountains east of Tyre. They 
awaited the return of Aly, and mourned for Hasan and 
Hosein like their Persian brethren. They carried with 
them sacred earth and stones from Persia, and they wore 
the long side locks like the Pharisees, which still distin- 
guish them. They broke the platter which a Christian 
might have touched, and refused to give even a draught 
of water to any not of their own creed. But they 
were few among the many, seeking refuge in the 
higher mountains, and hating the Sunnee as well as 
the Christian. The Druzes dwelt among them east of 
Sidon, and on Hermon, and fought the garrisons of 
Belfort and of Chateau Neuf in Galilee. Nur ed Din 
confirmed their sheikh in the government of Hasbeiya. 
Benjamin of Tudela relates the vulgar opinion as to 
their beliefs, and accuses them of immoralities connected 
with the phallic worship which appears to have really 
prevailed among the Ismailiyeh, and which is charged 
against Druzes even now. 

The Nuseiriyeh were found in the country of Tripoli, 
at Akkar on the south and Safita on the north. Many 
of them were slain during the first advance in 1098 A.D. ; 

* Cyril, Catzcfctical Lect., VI, 23. 



THE NATIVE LIFE IN PALESTINE. 237 

but their mysterious tenets are mentioned in 1234 A.D. 
by Alberic de Trois Fontaines. Jacques de Vitry, 
who confounded them with the Essenes, or Jewish 
hermits of the time of Christ, does not distinguish them 
from the Assassins, who held ten castles in the moun- 
tains east of Tortosa in 1140 A.D.* The phallic 
worship of the Ismaillyeh, who are the last modern 
remnant of the Assassins, in this same region on the 
mountains west of Emesa is generally credited among 
natives of Palestine. If we may believe Clement of 
Alexandria and Tertullian, the final symbol of the 
Eleusinian mysteries denoted the same worship of the 
creative energy.f In each case the reason was the 
same, whether among Greeks and Romans, or Assassins 
and Templars scepticism and materialism were the real 
facts, concealed by vows of secrecy and by mystic 
language. 

But these wild and dangerous sects did not represent 
the majority of Moslem peasants and wandering Arabs, 
who paid tribute to the Latins. 

The Fellahin, or " ploughmen," were Moslem by name, 
but not of Arab race, and not instructed in the Arab 
faith. They were descendants of the ancient Hittites 
and Amorites, of the Assyrian colonists from the East, 
and the old Nabathean tribes also transplanted by 
Assyrians to Palestine ; and an infusion of later Arab 
blood had only in part modified their race and their 
language, which still presented a dialect mainly Aramean. 

* Jacques ife Vilry, p. 85, English translation ; Rey, Colonies Franques t 
pp. 98-100 ; Benj. Tudtla, p. 80, Bchn's Early Travels in Palestine, 
t Cohortat II, and Against the Valentinians. 



23& THE LATIN KINGDOM- OF JERUSALEM. 

Their religion was the ancient worship of local spirits, 
called indeed Nebys or " prophets," but essentially the 
same with earlier Baals adored on mountain tops or 
under green trees. They piled up memorial pillars in 
their honour, and fastened rags of their clothing to the 
branches to call attention to their visits, and swore by 
sacred stones and dolmen altars in the woods, and 
lighted lamps for the sick, and sacrificed kids and lambs, 
and held their ancient harvest feasts, and cast bread on 
the waters, and feared the malignant spirits ghouls, 
and jan, and ghosts, and afrits, and goblins. All that 
they asked was bread to eat, safety from the cruel 
Turk, and justice. These three things the Latins gave 
them, and they were content as serfs under Latin 
lords. But after half a century the favourites of the 
half-Armenian Milicent, the vassals of the- avaricious 
Amaury, and of his leper son, began to oppress. New 
taxes were levied, and justice was sold. Then arose a 
Sunnee leader just and merciful, able to defeat the 
Franks in battle, pious and not given to wine a sultan 
who united all Islam under his sway. The Fellahin 
were zealous to follow Saladin, yet had been content to 
live under the just and merciful rule of Godfrey. 

The old land law of the East was a " village tenure," 
which distributed the lands according to the numbers 
of each family and of their ploughs ; so many strips 
divided off by stones being assigned to every plough, 
and each tiller receiving some of the good land and 
some of the bad. This arrangement was not disturbed 
by the Latins. The carucates remained as units of 



THE NATIVE LIFE IN PALESTINE. 239 

sale, and the serfs or villeins were handed over when a 
village was given or sold. Thus the peasants were 
never displaced, and, as they rarely went more than a 
few miles from the village, their servitude was unfelt, 
although the law forbade masterless men to wander 
through the country unless as pilgrims. When the 
tithes, and capitation tax, and rights of the seigneur 
were paid, there yet remained half the produce for the 
peasant more, probably, than Turkish governors had 
granted. Neither Pope nor Patriarch heeded the 
Saracen villein, and while robbers and murderers were 
hanged by the king's constable, the native customs were 
adjudged by the native jury under the baillie. There 
was little, therefore, to cause complaint among the 
peasantry, as long as the seigneur was just, or the 
appeal was justly decided. 

The cultivation of Syria and Palestine lands in 
which the soil is often very rich and productive was 
fully developed by the Latins. The existing records of 
the twelfth century are full of references to vineyards 
and olive - yards, orchards, cornfields, and watered 
gardens. In the north* there were forests of oak, pine, 
and cedar : the sandstones and upper limestones of the 
Lebanon were hidden by the bright green of the vines, 
trailing over the drystone terrace walls. The sandy 
shore of Beirut had already its pine plantations, and at 
Haifa and other seaside towns were palm groves by the 
streams. In Oultre Jourdan the roebuck wandered 
among the glades of oak by running brooks, and hid 

* Rey, Colonies Pratiques, pp. 236-252. 



240 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

also in the copses of Carmel. The hills of Palestine 
were covered with brushwood, the plains of Cassarea 
dotted with oaks. In the more open lands wheat and 
barley, oats, Indian corn, durrah, rice, millet, lentils, 
beans, and sesame, were 'grown. Cotton, and flax, and 
indigo, were cultivated in the plains, and in the Jordan 
Valley. Madder grew at Tripoli and Damascus. The 
flax of Nablus was as good as that of Egypt. Chick 
peas, and lupines, fennel, peas, cucumbers, and melons, 
flourished in the irrigated gardens. 

The Casale was a hamlet of at least an hundred 
houses, taxed at about seven shillings each a year.* 
The carucate was a plot of twenty-three cords in 
length by sixteen in breadth, each cord being of 
eighteen toises (not quite two yards in length), giving 
an area of about eighty English acres.f The tithes 
were paid at St. Martin's Day in November. The 
angaria, or feudal service, did not, in the Royal 
Domain, amount to more than one day's labour for 
-every carucate. The seigneur gave out seed when 
needed, and demanded only one fowl per carucate in 
return. The fruits in the gardens were the same as 
now figs, olives, pomegranates, and apricots, oranges, 
bananas, and almonds. The olive-yards covered the 
lower hills, and the vineyards flourished in the higher 
mountains. 

The cultivation of the sugar-cane was not confined to 
Tripoli. The old Crusaders' sugar mills still stand in 

* William of Tyre, pp. 271, 423, 434, French translation, Vol. III. 
t The Fedd&n cf the modern Syrians is about forty acres. 



THE NATIVE LIFE IN PALESTINE. 241 

ruins near Jericho, and others existed at Acre, El 
Bassah, and Tyre, Yanuh, By bios, and Engedi.* The 
growth of cotton was especially developed in the lands 
of Antioch, Edessa, and Lesser Armenia. The wines of 
Latakia and Batrun were famous, and that of Engedi 
was prized in Jerusalem ; but the vineyards were spread 
throughout the country, and each had its watch-tower 
and its rock-cut press. The present culture of Palestine 
does not, perhaps, attain to a tenth part of that which 
enriched the Latins in the first century of their rule. 

In the deserts to the east the wandering Arabs lived 
at peace tending their countless herds of wild unsaddled 
camels, driven in droves like oxen. Amaury of Nablus 
in 1 178 A.D., sold to the -Master of the Hospital " all his 
Bedouin of the Beni Karka " for a sum of twelve hun- 
dred pounds. Baldwin IV gave them a hundred tents 
of Bedouin in iiSoA.D.; and twenty years earlier they 
obtained from Baldwin III "fifty tents of Bedouin, 
namely those who had served neither himself nor his 
predecessors."! The Arabs, however, were among the 
first to join Saladin, and to shake off all semblance of 
serfdom. 

Slaves, not attached to the land as serfs, were owned 
not only by Saracens but by Christians also. The 
Moslems made slaves of Christians taken in war, and 
brought them also from Nubia, by the old route through 
Jeddah. The Latins often set free their sl-aves,t whose 
rights and liabilities were regulated by the Assizes. By 

* Rege$ta, Nos. 644, 1082. 

t Ditto, Nos. 355, 567, 593. 

J Key, Colonies Franques, p. 107. 



242 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

the agreement of King Amaury with the Church of St. 
Lazarus, north of Jerusalem, every tenth slave taken in 
war was to be given to the brethren.* 

Two other small elements of the mixed population of 
Syria are still to be noticed namely, the Jews and the 
Samaritans. The Jews are hardly noticed at all in 
extant documents, though in 1274 and 1286 A.D. we 
find a Jew banker, named Eli, noticed by Agnes of 
Scandalion.f The Crusades were often begun by 
murder of the European Jews, and in the East they 
were forbidden, by the Latin law, to hold any land, 
and were classed as inferior to the Moslems.^ It is 
from Benjamin of Tudela, the Jewish traveller of 1 160 
A.D., that all we know as to their fortunes in Asia during 
this age is gathered. 

Rabbi Benjamin travelled for nearly fourteen years : 
from Saragossa he went over Europe to Rome, where 
he arrived about 1160 A.D., and reached Constantinople 
>next winter. He was in Antioch in 1163, and then 
passed on to the south, and reached Egypt, returning 
to Sicily about 1169 A.D. He appears to have gone to 
Baghdad and Persia. Arabia and Nubia, and he distin- 
guishes his own experience from what he heard of more 
distant lands. His information is valuable except as 
regards the ancient sites of his fathers' land ; but he is 
hopelessly wrong in most of what he says as to Bible 
geography. He found the Genoese powerful at sea, 
and at war with the Pisans. The trade of Byzantium, 

* fiesta, No. 397. 

t Ditto, Nos. 1399, 1435. 

^ Rey, Colonies fratiqttes, p. 104. 



THE NATIVE LIFE IN PALESTINE. 243 

which he describes in detail, was partly in the hands of 
the Jews of Galata and Pera, including two thousand 
Rabbinical, and five hundred Karaite Jews, whose 
quarters were divided by a wall. As soon as he entered 
the Latin dominions he found the Jews few in number 
and poor. In Antioch, under Boemund the Stammerer, 
he found only ten Jewish glass makers ; but in Gebal, 
where the Genoese were settled, there were two hundred ; 
and fifty in Beirut. The Jews of Tyre, four hundred 
In all, were shipowners and glass makers. In Jerusalem 
two hundred Jewish dyers lived under the Tower of 
David. The Juiverie, or Ghetto, in the north-east quarter 
of the city, he does not notice, and it was perhaps 
established later. The " mourners of Jerusalem " who, 
in all ages since the Temple was destroyed, have been 
maintained by Jewish charity, seem, then, to have been 
still wailing at its outer wall, among whom was Rabbi 
Abraham, a pious ascetic. Twelve Jewish dyers lived in 
Bethlehem, and a few in Hebron, where the bones of 
others were broi ght in coffers, to be left near the site 
of Abraham's sepulchre. At Beit Jibrin there were only 
three Jews, but at Toron on the Jaffa road (now Latrun) 
there were three hundred. Three who were dyers lived 
at Beit Nuba, and three others at Ramleh. In Jaffa, 
where he saw the ancient Jewish cemetery of the second 
century A.D., which has yielded so many early Hebrew 
texts, there was, in 1163 A.D., only a single Jew a dyer. 
Ascalon was then a trading port, and two hundred 
Rabbinites had ventured there from Egypt. From the 
south Benjamin travelled back to Jezreel, where another 



244 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Hebrew dyer lived, and so reached Tiberias, famous 
from the second to the fifth centuries of the Christian 
era for its great Talmudic school. Only fifty Jews 
remained in this sacred city. In Upper Galilee he 
found twenty at El Jish, and fifty at Alma ; and finally, 
at Acre, four hundred from the south of France. These 
details seem to represent the Jewish population of the 
Latin Kingdom, numbering only one thousand nine 
hundred in all. Not one is mentioned as being rich, 
and it is the more clear that the Latins would have none 
of Jews because in Moslem regions around they were 
found to be numerous and highly prosperous. 

In Damascus, under Nur ed Din, Rabbi Benjamin 
found three thousand Jews, " many of whom were rich 
and learned men." In Palmyra two thousand warlike 
Jews were independent of both Christians and Moslems. 
They were equally numerous in the Edessa region, now 
already lost by the Latins, and at Nisibis and Mosul ; 
but Baghdad was the centre of the Eastern Hebrews, 
under the "Prince of the Captivity," who claimed 
descent from David. Side by side with the Abbasidc 
khalif, this religious leader appears to have been 
honoured by even Moslems. He wore a diadem on his 
turban, and rode through the city robed in embroidered 
silk, while men. shouted before him " Make way for our 
Lord, the Son of David ! " His authority extended from 
beyond the Caucasus, over Armenia, Persia, Mesopo- 
tamia, and Arabia, to Yemen. All Rabbis and ministers 
were appointed by him, and a tax levied for him on 
Jewish markets, merchandise, and inns. Many costly 



THE NATIVE LIFE IN PALESTINE. 245 

gifts were brought him, and he was rich, learned, and 
hospitable. The Baghdad synagogue had pillars of 
coloured marble plated with silver and gold, and the city 
seems to have been the Paradise of Israel during an age 
of persecution in Europe. 

At Hillah, on the Euphrates, the Jews also were many ; 
and the College of Pombedatha, which had existed for 
several centuries, was still maintained. In Arabia the 
Jews who had been powerful in Muhammad's time 
were independent, holding the cities, tilling the land, 
rearing cattle, and fighting the Arabs. In Persia they 
dwelt near the Assassins, who were independent, and near 
the frontiers of Media twenty-five thousand Jews were 
congregated. In 1155 David el Roy, a Jewish mystic, 
had here claimed supernatural powers, and had stirred up 
sedition till his own father-in-law killed him in his bed. 
Yet further east, at Khiva on the Oxus, eight thousand 
Jews lived in alliance with the Tartars, and throve 
as traders. In Samarkand there were fifty thousand 
Jews. The trade of Eastern Asia was thus secured by 
the Hebrew influence over the Turks and Mongols ; 
and in Khuzistan the merchants of India met, on the 
Tigris, with those of Arabia, Persia, and Mesopotamia ; 
and the Jewish brokers dealt with them all. The black 
Jews of India, and others in Ceylon, had pushed their way 
yet further ; and they had also entered China,* where a 
synagogue at Pien appears to have been built in 1 164 A.D. 

In Egypt the Israelites, settled at Assuan and Chalua, 
commanded the trade of inner Africa, in gold and precious 
* Yule's Marco Polo, I, p. 30. 



246 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

stones, iron, and copper ; and in Egypt generally they 
were very numerous. Alexandria was already a meet- 
ing place of all nations, where Spaniards and Italians, 
Germans, Danes, Saxons, English, Normans, and French- 
men, met with the Moors, the' Indians, the Arabs, and 
Abyssinians. Three thousand Jews lived in this city, 
and the Pisans found its trade of great importance. 

From this description it is clear that, though excluded 
from Syria, the Jews in great measure commanded the 
trade of Asia and Africa with Europe. It is still more 
remarkable that they had established a Jewish king- 
dom beyond the bounds of Norman influence. The 
legend of the Lost Ten Tribes, living in the mountains of 
Gog and Magog, was, like the legend of Prester John, 
much talked of in the West, and, like the latter, it had 
a foundation in truth. As early as 1175 Petachia of 
Ratisbon travelled to the East to find the ten tribes, and 
" reached the tribe of Issachar" in the mountains beyond 
Persia and Media.* The Jews of this region regarded 
the Tartars as descendants of the Canaanites, the Khitai 
being Hittites, and the people of Khiva Hivites. Rabbi 
Benjamin himself speaks of four Jewish tribes in Bactria ; 
and the Sabbatic river, beyond which the lost * tribes 
were to be sought, had been displaced from its true site 
under the Castle of Krak in Syria, to be variously 
identified with the Oxus and the Ganges. The belief 
originated in the story of the land Arsareth, never 
before inhabited, and beyond a river which should be 

* Carmoly, Itintraires de la Terre Sainte, pp. vii-xiii ; Jacques de Vitrv, 
p. 86, English translation; 



THE NATIVE LIFE IN PALESTINE. " 247 

dried up when the ten tribes returned, which is found in 
the second book of Esdras (xiii, 41-50). 

North of the Caspian lived the Turkish race of the 
Khozars, among whom were many Alans and Georgians, 
Armenians, Jews, and other refugees from the south. 
The Khozars held the Volga, and the Caspian itself 
was called the Khozar lake.* The terms Bak, Ilik, and 
Kliaklian, which denominated their chiefs, are sufficient 
evidence of the Turkish character of Khozar language. 

The Karaite or non-Talmudic Jews had reached 
the Crimea in the second century A.D., and early 
appeared among the Khozars. The later Sassanian 
monarchs of Persia fought against them, and Kobad 
built the wall near Derbend in the Caucasus to shut 
them out. When the Moslems conquered Persia they 
also fought in vain against the Khozars. In the time of 
Harun-er-Rashid, according to Arab writers, they were 
converted to Judaism, and a Jewish king ruled over the 
mingled population, which included many Moslems. 
At Ismid also an allied Jewish king ruled in the tenth 
century, amid a population mainly Christian ; and a 
Jewish general commanded the army. Masudi says 
that most of the Khozars accepted Jewish beliefs, 
though some were pagans. The trade in furs fox 
skins and ermine and minever was carried through 
their country. The Je.vish minister of the Khalif of 
Spain is said to have written to the Khozar king in 
958 A.D., and Yussf, the Jewish monarch of this mingled 
people, sent an answer. Their power then extended 
* Carmoly, Itineraires dc la Terre Sainte, pp. 3-104 ; 



248 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

even to the Crimea, and to the Sea of Asov ; but in 
1016 A.D. the Byzantines had already broken up this 
kingdom ; and in the twelfth century the Jews of the 
Volga and the Oxus remained only as trading com- 
munities among the Turkic tribes. Frederic II wrote 
to Henry III of England, in the thirteenth century, 
calling the Tartars descendants of the ten tribes shut 
up by Alexander the Great in the Caspian mountains ; 
and the legend survived, as did that of Prester John, 
long after the reality had ceased to be. 

The Samaritans "of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 
were tolerated by the Latins, and were found in more 
than one city of their kingdom ; but they did not 
possess the power of the Jews, and were already a 
dying sect. Benjamin of Tudela says that they num- 
bered a hundred in all at Shechem, their original 
centre, with a synagogue on Mount Gerizim, where they 
held the Passover. They had been very turbulent in 
the time of Justinian, and were far more strict in the 
observance of the Law, both in the sixth and in the 
twelfth century, than were most of the Jews especially 
as regarded defilement by the dead, and the purifications 
of Levitical custom. There were also two hundred 
Samaritans in Caesarea, and three hundred in Ascalon. 
In Damascus four hundred Samaritans lived as friends 
with the Karaite Jews, who most resembled them in 
their beliefs: but the two sects never intermarried. 
Probably there were others in Gaza and Alexandria, 
where they had synagogues till quite recent times. 

The Samaritans have a chronicle of their own, begun 



THE NATIVE LIFE IN PALESTINE. 249 

by Elcazar ben Amram in 1 149 A.D.,* and continued two 
centuries later by its copyist Joseph ben Ismail ; but it 
gives little information as to their history in the twelfth 
and thirteenth centuries beyond the High Priests' names. 
They had suffered from the Turks, who took five hundred 
of them captive to Damascus ; and some who claimed 
to be of the tribe of Benjamin fled to Gaza. In 1244 
the Kharezmians invaded Palestine, and, after the great 
Christian defeat at Gaza in that year, the Samaritans 
suffered cruelly from these barbarous tribes from Eastern 
Persia. A great many were slain in Shechem, and men, 
women, and children were again led captive to Dam- 
ascus, where their settled brethren helped them. Very 
few, however, returned to their ancient home ; and less 
than two hundred survivors now assemble on Gerizim, 
whereas in the time of Muhammad their settlements 
were scattered in all parts of Palestine. 

The sum of the mingled native populations ruled by 
the Franks is thus completed ; and with the manners 
and beliefs of all they became fairly familiar. Syria was 
the centre towards which the populations of Europe and 
Asia seemed to turn their faces, where Aryan, Semitic, 
and Turanian peoples came together in peaceful inter- 
courseGreeks and Russians from the North, Turks, 
Tartars, Armenians, Jews, and Arabs, from East and 
South, Egyptians and Nubians and Copts from Africa, 
and every European nation from the West. Even in the 
Isle of Skye a Viking treasure has been found, including 
coins of Arab Khalifs of the tenth century, and in 1248 

* Neubauer, Journal Asiatique, 1869, pp. 365-447. 

S 



250 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

A.D. letters in Mongolian reached the Pope in Rome. 
There was perhaps no period in history when nations of 
the far West and East were more closely connected by a 
constant intercourse, than they became during the age 
of Latin rule in Palestine, and in the trading period of 
the thirteenth century which followed. 



251 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

AFTER the fall of Jerusalem in 1187 William of Tyre 
sped to preach the third Crusade in France, where 
Philip II, Augustus then only twenty-three years of 
age had already reigned eight years, and had become 
absolute in his kingdom over his feudal lords. He had 
cut down the frontier tree of conference at Gizors, on the 
Norman border, to vex Henry II ; and Richard and 
John had joined the French against their own father, 
who, after his long and important reign, died on the 
6th of July, 1189, at the age of fifty-seven, afflicted by 
the ungrateful rebellion of his favourite younger son. 
Richard took the cross in penitence, but more than a 
year passed by ere he was ready to leave Europe. The 
great disaster of Hattin had spread dismay in the west, 
and the defeat of Saladin became a pressing necessity for 
peace and commerce ; but money and armies could not 
be raised in a moment. 

In February, 1188, Frederic Barbarossa wrote to 
Saladin. He had been warned by the Patriarch of 
Jerusalem, as early as 1185, of the impending evil, and 
had heard the news from Hattin immediately after the 

S 2 



252 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

battle was lost.* He now addressed " the illustrious 
Saladin formerly ruler of the Saracens, may he take 
warning by Pharaoh, and not touch Jerusalem." He 
demanded the surrender of Moslem conquests, on pain 
of war in Egypt, and threatened the anger of Germany, 
boasting the power of his warriors from Bavaria, Suabia, 
Saxony, Franconia, Thuringia, and Westphalia, the 
Brabantines, Lorrainers, Burgundians, Swiss, Prisons, 
and Italians, the Austrians and Illyrians, whom he 
summoned to his banner. But Saladin, who had 
received and sent envoys to Frederic, as early as i i82,f 
was then already master of Jerusalem, and offered very 
different terms. " In the name of God merciful and 
pitying," he wrote, and signed himself Hami-el-Hara- 
mein, " guardian of both sanctuaries " of Mecca and 
Jerusalem. He too could call on many nations to 
assist, and even the Khalif would obey his order. Only 
Tyre, Tripoli, and Antioch were left to Christians, and 
nothing, he said, " remains but that we should take these 
also." If peace were desired these towns must be 
surrendered; and in return Saladin offered the Holy 
Cross, the freedom of all Christian captives, liberty for 
one priest to serve before the Sepulchre, and all the 
monasteries to be left open which Christians had held 
before the conquest by Omar, with freedom for pilgrims 
to come and go in peace. 

For now the church bells rang no more in Palestine ; 
and minarets were rising over churches ; and in the 

* Re%esta, Nos. 646, 658, 671, 672 ; Jfoff. de Vinsanf, I, xvii. 
t Regesia, No. 59*. 



THE THIRD CRUSADE. 253 

early dawn the cry of the mueddhin rose in sleeping 
cities : 

" God is most great ! God is most great ! 

I testify there is no God but God. 

I testify Muhammad is God's messenger. 

Come ye and pray, come ye and pray, 

For prayer is better than sleep, 

There is no God but God." 

But it was not the Cross, nor the Sepulchre, nor right 
of pilgrimage, nor freedom for Greek churches, that 
Europe now desired. It was no longer the age of 
Godfrey, but the age of trade, and of landed interests in 
Syria. Those who could not leave their country were 
called on to subscribe the " tithe of Saladin." A priest, 
a Templar, a Hospitaller, a king's man, a baron's man, 
a bishop's clerk, and an accountant, were appointed in 
every parish to receive the money. Yet, when it was 
given, Philip and Richard used it for the war in Nor- 
mandy, and the Pope excommunicated the latter, and 
threatened Philip with an interdict. The French king 
bade the Pope not to meddle in the affairs of Princes; 
and Henry II was forced to sign a treaty, and left his 
curse upon his sons. 

The fame of Saladin had spread far and wide in Asia, 
and Asiatic Christians, bitterly estranged from the Latin. , 
were ready to make terms with so moderate a ruler even 
though a Moslem. Not only was Isaac Angelus of 
Byzantium his ally, but even Basil, son of Gregory, the 
Armenian Catholicus at Ani, wrote to him as an humble 
slave to report the march of Frederic Barbarossa. 

In 1189 Queen Sibyl announced to Frederic that the 



254 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Emperor Isaac of Byzantium had made a treaty with 
Saladin. She had met Guy, the vanquished King of 
Jerusalem at Tortosa, and was now in Antioch, the king 
being free, but under promise not to fight for his kingdom. 
Isaac Angelus sent to Saladin, to say the Germans could 
not reach Syria, and if they did, could do him no harm. 
His letter was in Greek and Arabic, and sealed with an 
enormous figure of himself in gold. But Kilij Arslan,* 
the Turkish Sultan of Iconium, was now jealous of the 
rising power of the Kurdish conqueror, and offered aid 
to Frederic. He was " of the sect of Philosophers," 
and Pope Alexander III had hopes of his conversion.! 
The German army gathered at Ratisbon, and marched 
through Austria and Hungary, where King Bela helped 
them. Crossing the Danube they fought the Huns, and 
Alans, and Bulgarians. They took Adrianople, where 
new mosques were being built by permission of a Chris 
tian Emperor; and here they wintered, and Isaac released 
their captive envoys, fearing their vengeance. Prince 
Henry, son of Frederic, was sent to bring ships, from 
Venice, Genoa, and Ancona, to blockade Byzantium ; and 
already in 1188 the Doge of Venice had ordered all his 
navy to be ready by next Easter, to help the Holy Land.| 
Fifteen hundred smaller ships, with twenty-six galleys, 
were ready to carry the Germans to Asia : for Isaac had 
submitted, and the Pope was no longer asked to preach 
a crusade against him. But the expected ally at Iconium 

* As a Seljuk he" must have regarded the Atabeks, the Ortoks, and 
Saladin equally as usurpers of the empire of Melek Shah. 

t Regesta, Nos. 68 1, 685, 686, 688 ; Jeoff. de Vinsauf, I, u. 
j Regesta, No. 670. 



THE THIRD CRUSADED 255 

proved a traitor "a deceitful man, thirsting for Christian 
blood." Frederic " an illustrious man, somewhat tall, 
with red hair and beard," already streaked with grey 
followed the route of the second Crusade, by Sardis and 
Philadelphia, Tripoli on the Meander, and Laodicea ; he 
reached Philomelium on the Octave of the Ascension, 
but was harassed by Turkoman flying troops. After 
more than a month of toilsome march, a thousand knights 
fought their way to Iconium, and took the town ; and 
thence the Germans marched through Greek territory, 
to Tarsus, and on to the Gueuk Su, the borders of 
Armenia. The Armenians looked coldly on the Ger- 
mans and sided with the Greeks of Byzantium. It was 
June, and Frederic, though no longer young, was strong 
and bold ; but the river was cold, and in swimming 
across he caught a chill of which he died, and with his 
accidental death his army melted away. Some got to 
Antioch, many died of fever, others wandered towards 
Aleppo, and were taken captive. Thus one more effort 
to cross over Asia Minor failed, and half the strength of 
Europe was spent in vain. Not more than five thousand 
followed Frederic of Suabia by the coast road to Acre, 
out of some 200,000 who left Germany.* 

Meanwhile the Norman King William of Sicily had 
sent fifty galleys, and five hundred knights, who escaped 
the pirates from the Greek islands, and came safe to 
Tripoli ; but he died soon after, and thus in him another 
Christian bulwark was lost. The clergy of Syria 

* J eo ff- & Vinsauf) I, Chs. 14-17 ; Jacques de Vitry, p. 103, English 
translation. 



256 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

absolved King Guy of his oath to Saladin ; and in 1189 
A.D. he gathered an army, and appeared at Tyre. Con- 
rad of Montferrat : son of the Marquess, then a prisoner 
in Damascus had won credit by his defence of this 
seaport, but if we may believe the English chronicler, 
who hated this Italian noble allied to Philip of France, 
he was a man selfish and treacherous, "surpassing 
Sinon in devices, Ulysses in eloquence, and Mithridates 
in variety of tongues " ;* who had seen his father brought 
in chains before Tyre, and vowed he would rather be the 
son of a martyr than surrender the city. He refused to 
let King Guy enter Tyre ; and gave little help to those 
who were in sore straits besieging Acre. All this might 
be explained in his favour ; but his ambition became 
clear when, in the following year, he took Isabel, younger 
half-sister of Queen Sibyl, from her husband, Humphrey 
of Toron, with whom she had lived three years since 
their wedding feast at Kerak ; and, though related to her 
within the prohibited degrees,! for he had himself married 
the Greek Emperor's sister, who as some said was still 
alive, he claimed through Isabel the throne of Jerusalem, 
Queen Sibyl having died soon after her sad meeting 
with King Guy at Tortosa. 

In the summer of 1189 the main forces of Saladin 
were still near Belfort and Banias, but on the 4th and 
5th of July skirmishes took place on the River Leontes 
between Tyre and Sidon in which the Moslems were 
defeated ; forays were also made from Tyre towards 

* J eo ff> d Vinsaitf, I, Chs. vi, vii, x, xxvi. 

+ Regesta, Nos. 860, 867. She was by her mother's side related to 
Conrad's first wife. 



THE THIRD CRUSADE. 257 

Toron in Upper Galilee, perhaps to ascertain Saladin's 
position before the landing of the expected Crusaders. 
Conrad seems to have been not entirely inactive in the 
cause of Christendom, although he usually remained in 
Tyre during the war. Among other means of rousing 
popular enthusiasm, he is said to have caused a great 
picture to be painted, representing a Moslem en horse- 
back defiling the Holy Sepulchre, and this was taken to 
Europe and shown in towns and markets. 

Without his aid, therefore, the Christians beleaguered 
Acre ; they landed to join King Guy at Scandalion 
(Iskanderuneh) south of Tyre, and marched along the 
coast by the " Ladder of Tyre," reaching Basse Poulaine 
(el Bassah) and Achzib north of Acre on the 26th of 
August ; and on St. Augustin's day, in the end of the 
same month 1189, began a long and difficult siege, 
which lasted two years, and would have failed but for 
the armies of King Philip and King Richard, which 
followed each other to Syria.* The army of King Guy 
numbered nine thousand men, and the Pisans of Tyre, 
who took his part as rightful king, brought fifty galleys. 
The Danes and Prisons added a force of twelve thousand, 
and an English and Flemish fleet preceding King Richard 
arrived later at Tyre on the i6th of September and at 
Acre on the I2th of October, 1190, with Archbishop 
Baldwin of Canterbury. The first Crusaders landed, 
and made an entrenched camp on Mount Turon, to 
the east of the town, nearly a mile from the sea, and 
close to the River Belus. Saladin, whose forces were at 

* J eo f' d & Vinsattf, I, Chs. xxv-lxxii. 



258 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

first not strong enough to withstand this army, camped 
on the 29th August, 1 189, at the foot of the hills at Tell 
Keisan, five miles to the south-east,* having a well 
supplied country behind him, and protected on his right 
flank by the Belus marshes. 

French, English and Germans joined the invaders, but 
in the first encounters on the i/j-th and 1 5th of September, 
1189, the Christians were routed by Saladin, who himself 
entered Acre and walked on its walls during this battle, 
while the Franks fled into their camp, leaving Andrew 
of Brienne and the Master of the Temple slain. King 
Guy was only saved by Jacques d'Avesnes, who gave 
him his own horse. After this the Christians them- 
selves besieged carried a wall of turfs, with deep 
ditches, round the promontory of Acre from sea to sea. 
Saladin being reinforced had crossed the Belus north- 
wards to el Ayadiyeh nearly five miles east of Acre, his 
left resting on the river. Fighting continued from the 
2 ist of September to the 4th of October with varying 
success. On the latter day the Moslem troops from 
Diarbekr were defeated and fled even beyond Jordan, 
and though the Franks were driven back Saladin 
retreated on the Nazareth road some eight miles to the 
south-east. Tidings had reached him of the advance ot 
Frederic Barbarossa. He was himself ill, suffering from 
painful boils on the lower parts of the body, and his 
men were discouraged. He sent urgent appeals to the 
Atabek Prince of Mosul, to come to his aid in the 
common cause, and meantime only watched the Franks 

* Some writers have confused Tell Keisan with the River Kishon. 



THE THIRD CRUSADE. 259 

with reduced forces during the winter. At Easter time 
of the year 1190 the Marquess Conrad brought pro- 
visions, men, and arms, from Tyre ; and a sea fight was 
won by his ships. The Christians attacked Acre from 
their camp, which caused Saladin to advance to his old 
position at Tell Keisan on the 25th of April. In May 
reinforcements reached him from Aleppo and Sinjar. 
On the 1 2th of June a fleet of fifty galleys from Alex- 
andria entered the harbour and provisioned the town. 
The siege dragged on till autumn, and on the 4th of 
October the Moslems, who communicated with the 
garrison by fires and pigeon messengers, made a com- 
bined attack, but were driven back from the camp. 

A second winter found the two armies still facing each 
other ; three siege towers had been built during the 
summer, but were soon destroyed by the Greek fire. 
Three vessels with provisions again entered the port, 
while others were wrecked on the reef at its mouth. A 
mighty shout of joy, with clashing of cymbals, and 
music of pipes, arose in Acre ; but famine soon again 
threatened the town, which was again relieved. On 
the 25th July, 1190, the Latin army had made a sortie 
for food, and met with further disaster while feasting in 
Saladin's camp. Further reinforcements reached them 
later, and among other leaders came Henry of Troyes, 
Count of Champagne, to whom the command of the 
army was given. Duke Frederic of Suabia, son of 
Barbarossa, followed, but " proved a cause of disagree- 
ment ; for the French had an old and long standing 
quarrel with Germany, since the kingdom and the 



260 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

empire contended for supremacy." Frederic died, 
however, of fever on the 2Oth January, 1191. 

Moezz ed Din of Sinjar deserted Saladin with his 
troops in November and was brought back from Fik 
east of the sea of Galilee, but the Mosul men were 
sulky and anxious to go home. In the autumn and 
winter of 1190 very few Moslem troops remained, and 
these were quartered at Haifa and Shefa Amr. The 
final struggle was put off to the spring, and time gained 
by King Guy and his allies, who awaited the Kings of 
France and England. 

Curious anecdotes are preserved by Boha ed Din of 
the siege of Acre. He records the kindness of Saladin 
to the poor Frank woman, whose baby girl had been 
taken in a Moslem attack on the camp. The small 
ransom was paid for her by this gentle prince, and she 
departed blessing him in some unknown Western tongue. 
Saladin's friend, who was present all through the siege, 
tells us how the two armies would at times cease fight- 
ing to rest and talk, or would make the boys on both 
sides fight for their amusement ; and how a horse from 
the Frankish horseboats insisted on swimming into the 
harbour of Acre, and so was captured by the defenders. 
Yet more he relates the iron fortitude of Saladin, sitting 
in pain on his horse in the battles, and passing sleepless 
nights in seeking to retrieve defeats. He relates the 
attacks by sea on the " Tower of Flies " ; the raids of 
renegade pirates on the Christian commerce. The 
Moslem ships stole, he says, through the besieging fleet 
disguised with crosses, and carrying pigs on board, while 



THE THIRD CRUSADE. 261 

the sailors were dressed as Franks ; and so provisions 
were carried to the town. He speaks also of Saladin's 
release of an aged prisoner who had come only as a 
pilgrim ; of the King of France, whose white falcon flew 
away to the city, and was valued at a thousand pieces of 
gold ; and of Aisa the swimmer, drowned in carrying 
gold and messages into the town, whose body was cast 
on shore " never before," he adds, " have we heard of a 
dead man delivering a message entrusted to his care." 

Other incidents of this long episode, which contrasts 
with the former rapidity of Saladin's movements, are 
also vividly described by Jeoffrey de Vinsauf. He tells 
of the soldier safe-guarded by an amulet : of the woman 
who zealously aided, with others, to build the parapet, in 
which, when slain by a dart, she desired to be buried : of 
the Turk whose horse was caught in a net : and of 
another taken in a foot trap : of the fishers who caught, 
in their nets, the Saracen swimming into Acre with a 
bladder of Greek fire : of the Christians scourged on the 
walls : of the Welshman and Parthian shooting at each 
other for a wager : of the towers on the Pisan galleys, 
which were burned ; and the ram a ship's mast shod 
with iron also destroyed by Greek fire : of the defeat of 
fifteen galleys and dromonds, dashed on the rocks, and 
boarded by the Italians outside the chain of the port : of 
Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury, leading the charge 
in his old age, with his two hundred knights, when 
Saladin fled to the hills. The Christians, under Geoffrey, 
brother of King Guy sent out a force to bring in a 
convoy of provisions, landed at Haifa on the south of 



262 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

the bay. They met the Saracens at Tell Kurdaneh, 
near the Belus springs half way along the sandy plain 
towards Haifa ; and retreating east of the river, forced 
the bridge at Dauk, and brought their charge safe back 
to Mount Turon. But idleness and discouragement told 
on the Latin forces, and Archbishop Baldwin died, 
lamenting the dissolute manners, the drunkenness and 
dicing of the army. Famine began to be severe ; and 
eggs and chickens were sold for fabulous sums ; and the 
marquess sent no help. Horses were eaten, and grass 
and offal ; and scurvy carried off great numbers of the 
soldiers. They fought fo bread, and gnawed bare 
bones ; and even knights and nobles stole food ; and 
many men became apostates, and deserted. The beans 
of the locust tree were sold thirteen for a denier; and 
flesh was eaten in Lent if it was found. And worse 
still, wine was not lacking, though bread and meat were 
scarce. It was among the poor that this scarcity was 
most felt ; and the Bishop of Salisbury made collections 
for them ; and at length a ship arrived with provisions, 
and the greedy Pisan, who had stored his corn for a 
year, lost it by fire, and all the army rejoiced ; and after 
Easter of the year 1191, the French king came on the 
1 3th of April, and found the Latins cursing Conrad of 
Montferrat, who, after all, had perhaps little to spare to 
feed so large a host. 

The discipline of the army had been sorely taxed by 
its long inaction. On the 2ist of October, 1190, the 
chaplain of Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote 
home, to describe with horror the dissolute and drunken 



THE THIRD CRUSADE. 263 

manners of the Crusaders. " The Lord is not in the 
camp," he wrote, " there is none that doeth good. The 
chiefs envy one another, and strive for privilege. The 
lesser folk are in want and find none to help them. In 
the camp there is neither chastity, sobriety, faith, nor 
charity a state of things which I call God to witness. 
I would not have believed had I not seen it. The 
Turks are besieging us, and daily do they challenge us, 
and persist in attacking us ; while our knights lie skulk- 
ing within their tents, and though they had promised 
themselves a speedy victory, in slothful fashion, like 
conquered men, let the enemy affront them with im- 
punity. Saladin's strength is daily increasing, whereas 
our army daily grows smaller. On the Feast of St. 
James (25th July) more than four thousand of our 
choicest foot soldiers were slain by the Turks, and on 
the same day many of our chiefs perished . . . the 
Kings have not yet arrived, nor is Acre taken."* Such 
was the condition of affairs before King Richard arrived, 
and also after the French king had failed in his first 
attempt on the town. 

Richard Lion Heart, acceding in 1189, had met Philip 
Augustus at Gisors on the Norman frontier ; and both 
had taken the cross, and gathered forces. The Pope 
had granted plenary absolution to all who would set out 
for the East; and men were told of relics desecrated 
and Christians martyred in Palestine. Richard had 
been promised by his father to Adelais, Philip's sister ; 

* See Archer's Crusade of Ridiard /, p. 18. This agrees with Boha ed 
Din, Part II, Chap. Ixxiv. 



264 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

but broke the bond in favour of Berengaria, daughter of 
the King of Navarre ; paying ten thousand marks of 
silver, and giving towns in compensation.* The friend- 
ship of the English and French kings was hollow, and 
the masterful ways of Richard roused dislike and jeal- 
ousy in the mind of Philip Augustus. He marched 
with perhaps sixty thousand men to Genoa, and went 
to Sicily in Genoese ships, while some of his forces set 
out from Venice, and others from Balata, and Brindisi, 
after the meeting with Richard (then newly crowned) 
at Vezelai. Philip reached Messina on the i6th of 
September, upOA.D. 

In England the preparations for a Crusade began 
while Henry II was yet alive. Money was sent to the 
Templars in 1187, and in the next year King Henry 
wrote to the Patriarch, to say that he had taken the 
cross with his son.t In the year of Richard's accession 
the usual murder of Jews preceded his departure. On 
the day of his coronation (the 3rd of September) "a 
sacrifice of the Jews to their father the devil was begun 
in the city of London." In Winchester the old accusa- 
tion was revived, that they had murdered a Christian 
boy at the Passover, and great dissatisfaction was felt 
because "gold contented the judges," and the Jews 
escaped.} The same accusation was brought in 1144 
and 1 179 against other Jews, and in the case of Hugh of 
Lincoln, was renewed in 1255 A.D. Chaucer puts the 



* Richard cf Devizes , Sect. 31. 

t Regesta, No. 673. 

j Richard of Devizes, Sects. 3, 9, 10, 12, 79 83. 



THE THIRD CRUSADE. 



scene of another instance in Asia, and reflects the 
popular prejudices against Jews who were 

" For foul usure, and lucre of vilanye, 
Hateful to Crist and to his companye."* 

The funds for the new Crusade were raised by selling 
dignities, and leave to stay at home. William, Bishop 
of Ely, bought the king's seal for three thousand pounds 
of silver ; and King Richard declared " I would sell 
London if I could find a chapman." The custody of 
castles was so arranged, and security taken from the 
kings of Wales and Scotland, that they would not annoy 
England while King Richard~was absent. Nevertheless, 
troubles soon arose, through the tyranny of William, the 
chancellor, Bishop of Ely. In the year following the 
king's departure Prince John, his broth er,f was received 
as a liberator, after the scandalous imprisonment of 
Geoffrey, third son of Henry II, Archbishop of York, by 
the Constable of Dover ; and the chancellor fled. Only 
the influence of his mother held back Earl John from 
usurpation of the throne of England. 

King Richard's fleet sailed by Gibraltar, after encoun- 
tering, on the 5th of May, 1 190, a storm which scattered 
it off the Spanish coast, and on the 22nd of August 
it reached Marseilles one hundred galleys and fourteen 
busses. Each galley held forty horses, forty soldiers, 
and fifteen sailors, with a year's provision for man and 
horse ; and the busses had a double number of each. 
The arrny marched from Normandy, through the. 

* Prioresses Tale, 1681-2. 
t Richard of Devizes, 46-50. 



266 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Angevine possessions, to Lyons, Avignon, and Mar- 
seilles ; and sailed by Stromboli to Messina, where 
other ships awaited them.* William of Sicily, lately 
dead, had married Richard's sister Joan in 1177 A.D. ; 
but now Tancred, natural brother of Constance, wife 
of the Emperor Henry VI, who had just succeeded 
his father Frederic Barbarossa, had seized Apulia and 
Sicily, and held the dowry of Queen Joan in ward. 
King Richard left France on the i6th of August, 
1 190 A.D., and reaching Messina on the 23rd of 
September,! found the English already quarrelling 
with Griffons, as they called the Greeks, and Saracens, 
who called them in contempt the " Englishmen with 
tails." A riot, begun about the weight of a loaf, gave an 
excuse for storming Messina, and on the walls of the 
city the English flag was hoisted, to the wrath of the 
French. The dowry of Queen Joan was demanded, 
and a great wooden tower, called Mate-Griffon, was 
built upon the hill commanding the town. Tancred 
made peace, and paid the dowry ; and the plunder 
of Messina was in part restored. But it was now too 
late to sail for Acre before the spring,- and Christmas 
was celebrated in Sicily with splendid festivals. On the 
?,5th of March, 1191, Philip set out for Palestine; but 
Richard waited for his mother Eleanor, who was 
bringing Berengaria with her, to be placed .in charge 
of Queen Joan, while Eleanor returned to Normandy. 
O'n Wednesday after Palm Sunday, the loth of April, 

* Richard of Devizes, 20 ; Jeoff. de Vinsauf, II, xi. 
t He coasted by Genoa, Pisa, and Naples, where he landed on aSth 
August, and rode to Salerno on 8th of September, staying there til! the 1 3th. 



THE THIRD CRUSADE. 267 

the English fleet set sail. The two queens went in 
front, with three ships holding treasure. Thirteen 
busses and galleys followed in a second line, and the 
five next lines numbered one hundred and four in all 
after which came the king's ship, burning a signal light.* 
The whole fleet was thus one hundred and twenty-one sail, 
but contrary winds scattered the ships, and twenty-five 
were. missing at Crete. It seems doubtful whether the 
English force could have exceeded ten thousand men 
in all. 

Of King Richard himself we learn that, unlike King 
Philip, he was as gay at sea as though he stood on firm 
land.f He was thirty-four years of age, and thus the 
senior of Philip, who was only twenty-six. Richard 
was tall, with long limbs, and ruddy auburn hair ; of 
great personal strength, and much respected and 
admired. Of Berengaria we only hear that she was 
virtuous, but plain. Richard had seen her at the 
tournay of Pampeluna, and preferred her to the fair 
but frail Adelais. In later years they were estranged 
for a time, but reconciled before his death. She gave 
no heir to the Crown of England, but survived her 
husband thirty years. 

On the 1st of May the English fleet, scattered by 
a storm on the I2th of April, left Rhodes; and the 
adverse gales drove the buss on which the two queens 
sailed near to the port of Limousin on the south coast 
of Cyprus, while three other ships were wrecked on the 

* Richard of Devizes, 59 ; Jeoff. de Vinsauf, II, xxvii. 

\ Of King Philip, Richard of Devizes says, Francus mate nauseans. 

T 2 



268 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

rocks, and the crew taken captive by the Cypriotes, 
who also seized the wreckage. On the 6th of May 
King Richard brought the whole fleet into port, 
demanding satisfaction for the outrage. Cyprus was 
then under an " Emperor" named Isaac Comnenos, who 
was allied to Saladin: he had declared his independence 
of Andronicus of Constantinople.* He failed to entice 
the queens on shore, and is said to have scorned to deal 
with one " merely a king." The Greek army, assembled 
to oppose Richard's landing, were clad in "costly armour 
and many-coloured garments." Richard was first to 
spring on shore, and catching a horse he charged the 
emperor, challenging him to single combat. But this 
was not the manner of Greek emperors, and the 
Byzantines fled, and left Limousin in the hands of 
the English. In a second combat near the town (now 
Limasol) the Emperor did not so succeed in escaping ; 
for Richard charged and bore him from his horse ; and 
he fled yet further to the " strong fort called Nicosia," 
on the mountains. 

Whether by design or accident this descent on Cyprus, 
and the appearance of King Guy coming, with three 
ships, to ask advice and aid against the French, who 
had proposed Conrad of Montferrat as King of Jerusalem, 
led to important political results. King Guy had 
been defeated at Hattin : Conrad had saved Tyre from 

* Manuel Comnenos, whose grand niece Maria had married King 
Amaury of Jerusalem, died in 1180. His son Alexius was murdered in 
1183 by his cousin Andronicus, who in turn was murdered in September of 
1186 A.D. Andronicus had sent Isaac Comnenos, a nephew of Theodora 
(wife of Baldwin III), to Cyprus before his own death : Isaac's daughter 
seems to iiave been sent to England with Berengaria. 



THE THIRD CRUSADE. 269 

Saladin. The better soldier was by some thought fitter 
for the crown ; and Sibyl was dead and had left no heir. 
It might be a fair question whether Isabel was not now 
the rightful queen ; but there was no doubt as to what 
was thought at Acre by the army, which had expected 
things perhaps impossible of Conrad. It was said, too, 
that he had a wife in Europe, and one at Constantinople, 
besides Isabel ; and Humphrey of Toron was certainly 
alive, and Archbishop Baldwin had excommunicated 
Conrad, and declared that the clergy were coerced to 
dissolve the former marriage, though Isabel had said 
that she never consented to the strange wedding in 
Kerak, and had willingly followed Conrad : " for a 
female," says the Norman monk Jeoffrey called de 
Vinsauf because he wrote as to the keeping of wine " is 
always variable and changeable, her sex frail, her mind 
fickle, and she delights in novelty. So she lightly rejects 
and forgets those whom she knows . . . and 
willingly receives evil advice " questions concerning 
which a monk had, we may suppose, no personal know- 
ledge. In spite, then, of King Guy's failure, the cause 
which King Richard advocated against the French was 
the popular opinion. 

The wedding of King Richard and of Berengaria was 
now solemnised on the I2th of May, 1191, in Limousin, 
where she was crowned Queen of England. The king, 
we learn, was " very jocose and affable." King Guy mean- 
while led the army to Famagusta, and fought the so- 
called emperor near Nicosia. The Greeks disowned 
him, and the English flag was hoisted on the walls ; and 



270 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Isaac submitted, and was bound with silver fetters, but 
permitted to see his daughter who was taken captive.* 
So began the first English occupation of Cyprus, seven 
centuries ago. The country was rich and prosperous : 
the spoil included much treasure, and many precious 
stones. Thus King Richard held in his gift, even before 
reaching Acre, a kingdom nearly as large as that of 
Jerusalem, to be given as he might see fit. 

Design or accident having so given to Richard a 
conquest which the less daring Philip missed, seneschals 
and justices, sheriffs and constables, were appointed, 
" just as in England " ; and King Guy received a share 
of the booty .f A rumour came that Acre was taken ; 
and King Richard hasted to prepare his fleet, to cross 
to Syria. " May God delay the taking of Acre till I 
come," he said ; and sailed with his swiftest galleys 
from Famagusta. Soon the dark Lebanon was sighted, 
the Castle of Margat, Tortosa, and Tripoli ; and here a 
three-masted ship, full of arms and bottles of Greek fire, 
was taken ; and, coasting to Tyre, the fleet sailed south 
past Scandalion, and Casal Imbert, and sighted the 
" Cursed Tower " over Acre. 

It was the week of Pentecost, 1191 A.D. The peaceful 
Mediterranean lapped on the yellow sands of the shallow 
bay ; the long grey ridges of Upper Galilee ran up 

* Ernoul says she was taken to England, but escaped after King 
Richard's death, and stopped at Marseilles, where she was forced to marry 
Raymond VI, of Toulouse, who divorced her later to wed the sister of the 
King of Aragon. She married a Flemish knight, who claimed Cyprus, but 
was expelled from the island, by Amaury II, aj being mad. (Archer's 
Crusade of Richard I, p. 69.) 

t Richard of Devizes, Sect. 61. 



THE THIRD CRUSADE. 271 

towards Hermon streaked with snow. To the south was 
the dark shoulder of Carmel, with palm groves at its 
feet. On the low hills were the black tents, and gay 
pavilions of Saladin ; and in the great entrenched camp 
of Turon, above the Belus gardens, a famine-stricken 
Latin army lay between the city and the Saracens. 
The town stood on a promontory, with a small port to 
the south, closed by a chain, and guarded by the " Tower 
of Flies." The sound of trumpets, horns, and pipes, 
timbrels and harps, rose from the camp, as the besiegers 
mustered to welcome the English galleys, which on the 
8th of June set their square emblasoned sails towards 
shore ; and at night-time they welcomed Richard with 
wax torches and lights, until " the Turks thought that 
the whole valley was on fire."* 

The Christian army now numbered about one hun- 
dred and twenty thousand men in all; and Richard 
outbid King Philip, offering four aurei per month as pay 
for a soldier, instead of three. The Pisans, who were 
faithful to King Guy, swore allegiance to King Richard, 
and the siege towers of the French were burnt by the 
besieged. But " Mauvoisin," the Duke of Burgundy's 
great mangonel, was the first to breach the wall of the 
Cursed Tower ; and Richard bought the petnvriae of the 
Count of Flanders, who died during the siege. French 
miners were sapping the walls, and the French repelled 
a furious assault from Saladin's troops, who stormed the 
camp, fighting with axes, and daggers, and clubs that 

* J eo ff- d Vinsanf, III, ch. i-ii. 



272 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

bristled with spikes. The mines, supported by logs of 
timber,- were fired ; and the wall so sapped fell down in 
ruins. The Christians pressed into the breach on the 
3rd of July and set their scaling ladders ; and the 
banners of the garrison were crowded on the wall, while 
the Greek fire poured on the Latins. At length the 
Cursed Tower at the north-east corner of the city- 
was mined, and the Turkish counter-mine met the 
French gallery. King Richard was ill,* but carried on 
a bed of silk he encouraged his men, who crossed the 
ditch under a hurdle screen, and sapped a tower which 
fell. The siege had dragged on, till only six thousand 
Turks remained in Acre, and the besieged at last con- 
sented, on the 1 2th of July, to surrender the city, to give 
back the Holy Cross, and to free two thousand nobles 
and five hundred other Christian captives, if only the 
garrison were allowed to leave the town. The Turks 
marched out, after a stubborn defence of one year and 
eleven months ; and the Latins, entering the open gates 
with songs and dances, occupied Acre in the last days 
of July. Saladin, anxiously watching from the plain, 
beheld the Christian banners placed on the " Bloody 
Tower " at the north-east angle of the inner wall, on the 
Castle further west, on the mosque itself, and on the 
Templars' Castle in the south-west angle of the city. 
The grief of the Moslem army was great:, as they 
sullenly withdrew to the hills of Shefa Amr on the road 
to Nazareth. 

* Boha ed Dm describes fruitless negotiations for peace with Saladin 
during this period. 



THE THIRD CRUSADE, 



The quarrel of the two factions, one favouring King 
Guy and the other Conrad of Montferrat, now burst 
forth afresh. It was settled for the present, however, 
by compromise, the former being accepted as king for 
his lifetime, and Conrad appointed his heir, and mean- 
while Governor of Tyre, Sidon, and Beirut. King 
Philip was ill, angry with Richard, eager to seize the 
lands of the Count of Flanders, who had died at Acre, 
and weary of the war. He left most of his army in 
Palestine, and returned on the 1st of August to France, 
where, in revenge for real or fancied injuries, and in spite 
of an agreement from which Pope Celestin III would 
not release him, he harried Normandy, and stirred up 
John to seize the throne of England. Richard Lion 
Heart remained unquestioned chief in Palestine, and all 
Europe rang with the fame of his exploits, in Sicily and 
Cyprus, before the walls of Acre, and after his march 
to Ascalon. But the month allowed to Saladin for 
restoring the Cross expired, and neither this nor any of 
the principal captives or money were sent. In our eyes 
the fair fame of King Richard is dimmed, whatever may 
have been his treaty rights, by his cruel severity to the 
hostages he held. On the I5th of August two thousand 
seven hundred Turks were killed by his order : " his 
soldiers came forward with joy," says the chronicler, " to 
fulfil his commands, and to retaliate, by Divine Grace, 
taking revenge on those who had destroyed so many 
Christians with missiles from bows and arbalists."* 

* feoff, de Vinsaitf, IV, 4. The arbalist or cross bow was unknown in 
the East. (Anna Coiiinena, X.) 



274 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Such was the fate of nearly half the brave defenders of 
a surrendered city.* 

On the next day the preparations for the march to 
Jaffa began, but it met with such resistance that it was 
already the loth of September before they reached the 
ruined town.f Three weeks were occupied in traversing 
a distance of three days' march, along the road which 
Godfrey had followed. Saladin, who had retreated to 
Shefa Amr and thence marched to join reinforcements 
at Caymont east of Mount Carmel, crossed the downs 
south of the mountain and lay on the flank of the 
Christians with his brother Melek el Adel at the Ayun 
el Asawlr in the plain south of Carmel. 

AcreJ had become a scene of very riotous living since 
its capture. Wine and dancing women abounded, and 
King Richard found difficulty in withdrawing the dis- 
affected French force from these attractions. The army 
is said to have now numbered three hundred thousand 
men, and it camped for some days in the plain south of 
the Belus stream. It marched with the standard on its 
truck, guarded by Normans, in the centre. The king 
led the van : the French brought up the rear : a fleet of 
barges and smacks carried provisions along the coast ; 

* According to Roger of Howden's Chronicle, Saladin had beheaded his 
Christian captives two days before. Boha ed Din also says that Richard's 
order was reported to be a reprisal for the Christians slain by the Moslems. 
According to him the treaty was made by the besieged, and not accepted 
by Saladin himself. Saladin declined to give up the Cross or pay the 
first instalment of money demanded till the Moslems were handed over. 
After this massacre Saladin put to death all prisoners falling into his hands, 
even including women. 

t feoff, de Vinsauf^ IV, 24. 

J Ditto, IV 7 , ch. 9-25. 



THE THIRD CRUSADE. 275 

and wagons as well as pack animals were used. They 
halted two days at Haifa under Mount Carmel, watched 
by the Turks ; and on the 2/th of August advanced to 
the little fort of District,* ten miles from Haifa, being 
much impeded by the long grass and copses, and finding 
the country full of game. The vanguard was close to 
Kefr Lam a small castle, then in ruins, five miles south 
of District, and like it within a mile of the shore. Each 
night when they camped a herald was appointed to cry 
aloud, " Help, help the Holy Sepulchre ! " and the army 
took up the cry, and prayed with tears, being " much 
refreshed " by the exercise. They suffered from the 
scorpions which infest these plains, and tried to drive 
them away by clashing shields, helmets, basins, and 
cauldrons. 

Two days later, being supplied from the fleet, the 
main body marched to Merla, which seems to have 
been the Tour des Salinesf el Meldt on the Crocodile 
River, eleven miles from District ; and the king with the 
vanguard was three miles further south at Csesarea. The 
Turks still harassed the march from the slopes of 
Carmel, but lost an important emir. Many stragglers 
from Acre joined in ships at Caesarea. The next stage 
was the "Dead River," now called Nahr el Mefjir, "the 
gushing stream," only three miles from Csesarea. It is a 

* District was not Athlit as some have supposed, since that castle was 
built by the Templars in 1218, but the older post to the north now called 
Dustrey, where there are remains of a fort with a stable cut in the rock of 
the fosse. (See Memoirs of Survey Western Palestine, Vol. I, p. 309, 
where I have given a plan and full account.) 

t Key, Colonies Pratiques, p. 424. It was so called from thf salt pans 
of the Hospitallers, which still exist. 



a;6 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

perennial brook crossed by an ancient bridge, with a 
sandy bar at its mouth, and marshes above. The banks 
are high and steep, and the country to the south wooded 
with oak. 

After three days* the advance continued, through 
rocky country with long grass and trees ; and the 
Templars lost many of their horses by the Turkish 
arrows. The King of England himself was wounded 
by a dart, and only five miles of road were traversed 
to the " Salt River," now called Nahr Iskanderuneh 
a sluggish marshy stream. Three days later the whole 
force, in battle array, marched through the oak glades 
to the Nahr el Falik, or " River of the Cleft," which the 
Latins called Rochetailie. It is formed by a cutting 
through the low hills near the shore, which the Romans 
made to drain the papyrus marshes within. This was 
a ten mile march, partly over sand dunes. The forces 
which arrived are reckoned at only one hundred thousand 
men, so that great part of the army must have been left 
in garrison, besides the losses by sickness, wounds, and 
desertion on the way. It was now the 7th of September, 
a time when the heat in the shore plains is at its height ; 
and a distance of five miles still separated the camp from 
the town of Arsuf, on the shore to the south. The main 
battle of the campaign was fought along this stretch of 
road, which had the sand dunes and shore precipices on 
its west, and the oak forest of Arsuf on its east. 

The spies brought word that a Saracen force of three 

* Boha ed Din (II, ng 120) says that negotiations for peace went on 
during these three days, both sides wishing to gain time for the arrival of 
reinforcements. 



THE THIRD CRUSADE. 277 

hundred thousand men was approaching from the east 
The army of Richard was now divided into five divisions, 
each of two companies or brigades of ten thousand 
men. The Templars led the van : the Bretons and 
men of Anjou the king's subjects followed : King 
Guy came next with the men of Poitou ; the fourth 
division was Norman and English with the Royal 
standard : the fifth was the rearguard of Knights 
Hospitallers. The whole army was closely mustered, 
stretching from near the shore to the forest ; and a 
flanking party, under Henry of Champagne, marched 
on the east, with bowmen and cross-bowmen. The 
baggage and provisions were near the shore. At nine 
in the morning a body of ten thousand Turks appeared ? 
on the left flank, charging with loud shouts, and shower- 
ing darts and arrows. Some of them were Nubians, 
some Bedouin from the eastern desert, with bow, quiver, 
and target. A support of Turks, well ordered under 
many banners, followed these lighter troops, and num- 
bered some twenty thousand men. The Arab emirs, 
through clouds of dust, led the onset to the sound of 
clarions and trumpets ; but the saddles were emptied 
by the steady fire of English bows. Suffering from 
the heat of their mail, and the arrows of the Moslems, 
the European force moved steadily on. All the forces 
of Saladin, from Damascus and Mosul, from Egypt and 
Syria, pressed them towards the sea. 

The Knights Hospitallers now became impatient, as 
one by one they lost their horses in the rear, and they 
sent for reinforcements to the King. The signal for 



278 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



attack was to be given by six trumpets two in rear, two 
in the centre, and two in the van ; but Baldwin de Carreo, 
Marshal of the Hospital, with another brother, precipi- 
tated the crisis ; and all the knights of the Order charged 
in troops, followed by the flanking force. The second 
and third divisions became engaged, and the dismounted 
Turkish bowmen were butchered by the foot-men. King 
Richard came to their aid and broke into the Turkish 
infantry. 

" Oh, how different," says the monkish chronicler, 
" are the speculations of those who meditate amidst the 
columns of the cloister, from the fearful exercise of war ! " 
Richard was conspicuous in the 'metie, hewing a wide 
path with his sword. Amid the blinding dust, the cries 
and groans and shouts of battle, w-ere seen at times 
glimpses of fallen banners, slaughtered horses, and dying 
men. The ground was strewn with scimitars and long 
cane lances tufted with black ostrich feathers. Some 
Moslems fled to the west, and fell from the sandy cliffs 
into the sea. The English and Norman reserves followed 
slowly, inland, the scattered divisions which pursued the 
fugitive Saracens. A kinsman of Saladin led the last 
charge, with seven hundred of his chosen household 
troops, under a yellow banner ; but King Richard on his 
bay Cyprian steed charged again so furiously that the 
victory was decided. The Christian force was double 
that defeated at Hattin, but that of the Moslems was 
perhaps the largest yet encountered by the Latins since 
the battle of Antioch. King Guy thus lived to aid in a 
terrible defeat of his former conqueror ; and at the 



THE THIRD CRUSADE. 279 

battle of Arsuf that of Hattin was avenged by Richard 
Lion Heart. 

In the evening Arsuf was reached, and a Turkish 
force, sallying from the town, was defeated ; and here 
the wearied troops camped in safety. Thirty-two 
Turkish chiefs were found on the field, splendidly armed 
and arrayed. Seven thousand dead, of lesser rank, were 
carried away by the Moslems ; but the loss of the Chris- 
tians was small. Jacques D'Avesnes, the Flemish leader, 
fell in one of the charges, and was buried next day a 
Sunday, September 8th, on which the Nativity of the 
Virgin was celebrated by solemn masses and large 
thank-offerings in the Church of Arsuf. The defeated 
Moslems marched south to Mejdel Yaba. 

The steps taken by Saladin after this crushing defeat 
were curious. He gave orders to dismantle the walls of 
Ascalon, Jaffa, and Gaza, the castles of Galatia, Blanche- 
Garde, Plans, Maen, Lydda,Ramleh, Belmont, and Toron 
the latter two on the Jerusalem road and Chateau- 
Arnaud, Beauvoir, and Mirabel* ; reserving only the fort 
of Darum on the Egyptian frontier, and the fortresses of 
Jerusalem and Kerak. The reason was that he had no 
longer forces enough for so many garrisons. These 

* Galatia appears to have been Jelediyeh (not Keratiyeh, which is too far 
from Tell es Safi), and Blanche-Garde was Tell es Safi. Plans, or the 
"Castle of the Plains " as otherwise called, is probably the Castle of 
Kalensdvueh in the plains. Maen is Bir M&tn ; Belmont is now S6l*a 
west of Jerusalem (see Memoirs Survey of West. Palestine, Vol. Ill, 
p. 19, where I have cited the authorities, and p. 157 for the ruins). Toron is 
now Latnln, and Chateau Arnaud appears to have been at El Burj 
(Memoirs, III, p. 15). Beauvoir is probably the castle near Tabor : Mirabel 
(Memoirs, II, p. 263) is now Rds el Azn, the ancient Antipatris. There 
are remains of mediaeval castles at all these sites, which led me to these 
identifications in 1875. Blanche-Garde was already known. 



280 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM!. 

places would fall into Christian hands, and would 
become as intended when they were built strong 
posts on the line of advance, or for guarding the low- 
lands. On the loth of September King Richard's 
infantry reached Jaffa, ten miles from Arsuf, and found 
the town in ruins. Here the two queens of England 
and Sicily came into port, and the victorious army 
rested, and enjoyed the shade of the gardens, and the 
abundance of figs and grapes, citrons and pomegranates. 
The discipline of the force was however soon undermined, 
as at Acre, by idleness and luxury, though the rebuilding 
of the walls, and clearance of the ditches, afforded plenty 
of work. 

Several small skirmishes followed, while the army 
recruited ; and a galley was sent to reconnoitre Ascalon, 
which was being dismantled, and which would, but for 
the rebuilding of Jaffa, have been at once attacked. The 
castles of Plans (Kalensaweh) and Maen three miles 
east of Ramleh were rapidly repaired, by the Templars 
and the King respectively, and thus the whole of the 
plains of Jaffa were cleared of enemies. Towards the 
end of the autumn an embassy was sent to Saladin to 
treat of peace. King Richard demanded the surrender 
of all that Baldwin the Leper had ruled in Syria, and the 
tribute that King Amauryhad required of Egypt. Sala- 
din offered in return to make the Jordan the boundary of 
the restored kingdom, if Ascalon was left an unwalled 
town. Seif ed Din, Saladin's brother, was honourably 
received ; and the son of Humphrey of Toron acted as 
interpreter, in interviews at Yazur and Jaffa, being well 



THE THIRD CRUSADE. 281 

versed in Arabic.* King Richard then demanded that 
Kerak and Montreal should be dismantled, and on this 
point the treaty failed to be concluded. The English 
army advanced on Jerusalem, but lingered seven weeks 
at the foot of the hills between Ramleh and Lydda. A 
foray into the mountains gave the Templars two hundred 
head of oxen, and a skirmish occurred in which the Earl 
of Leicester had two horses killed under him. 

The winter was now beginning, and the advance was 
only pushed as far as Beit Nuba, in the plain, eleven 
miles south-east of Lydda. Here storms of hail and 
rain deluged the camp, and violent winds upset the tents. 
The bacon and biscuits were spoilt, the arms and 
armour rusted. The Templars, Hospitallers, and Pisans 
counselled delay, and urged that Ascalon should first be 
fortified. Had they known the deep dejection of Saladin 
at this time, and the fears of his counsellors who would 
not let him leave Jerusalem, a very different decision 
might have been reached. When to their surprise the 
Moslems saw the Franks retreat, Saladin believed it to 
be the answer to his prayers when, in despair, he had 
thrown himself on the mercy of God as his last refuge. 
The argument of the knights on the other hand was 
that no water could be found for the army outside 
Jerusalem. Early in January the Franks retreated a 
day's march to Ramleh, where cold and rain and mud 
disheartened the soldiers. Most of the French departed 
to Jaffa and Acre, others with the Duke of Burgundy 

* J eo ff- d e Vinsaufi IV, 31. Boha ed Din, II, 123, 126, 128-9, I 33- J 44i 
158-161. 



282 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

to Plans. King Richard, much displeased, marched 
over the boggy plains to Yebnah, and camped on the 
2Oth of January in the dismantled fortress of Ascalon. 
The Saracens also went into winter quarters, and the 
rebuilding of Ascalon now engaged the English. Ac- 
cording to the Arab account of Boha ed Din, Richard 
and Henry of Champagne on the one hand, and Conrad 
of Montferrat on the other, were negotiating against 
each other with Saladin. When, however, he says that 
Richard wished his sister Joan to marry Melek el Adel, 
Salad in's brother, and that she refused, even if he 
became a Christian, and she was made Queen of 
Palestine, we may well doubt such statements, which 
are not supported by the Christian accounts. The 
new walls of Ascalon were no doubt only a renovation 
of the old ones, but in some cases solid foundations 
were only found by digging deep. Fifty-three towers 
had been overthrown, and among these are named the 
Tower of Maidens, that of Shields, the Bloody Tower, 
the Emir's Tower, and the Tower of Bedouin, as being 
the five principal. King Richard reconnoitred the fort 
of Darum, south of Gaza, and set free a convoy of 
twelve thousand Christian prisoners then on their way 
to Egypt. Easter fell on the 5th of April, and found 
him still in Ascalon ; but the climate of Palestine is 
unfit for campaigns before that season, and very little 
time of any value was lost. 

Meanwhile the quarrel with the French became a 
source of weakness, very important because so large a 
part of the force was French by birth, if not by allegi- 



THE THIRD CRUSADE. 283 

ance. Conrad of Montferrat refused to come to Ascalon, 
but met the king at Casale Imbert, north of Acre. The 
Duke of Burgundy demanded money, and retired to 
Acre with his men, where the Pisans and Genoese 
taking opposite sides in the quarrel fought each other 
in the streets, until Richard came himself to pacify 
them ; he returned to Ascalon after the conference 
with Conrad on the Tuesday before Easter. The re- 
maining Frenchmen, occupied in building the walls, 
refused to continue in his service probably because 
money now began to fail and departed to Tyre under 
an escort of Templars. In Jerusalem the Holy Fire 
appeared at Easter, but Saladin said it was " a 
fraudulent contrivance." After Easter came the Prior 
of Hereford, bringing letters from the chancellor 
whom Earl John had driven out of England, and with a 
message that no more money remained in the treasury 
at home. 

King Richard neglected nothing that could further his 
enterprise ; the negotiations for peace, the winter, the 
want of money, the bad news from England, the French 
defection, the fatigues he had experienced in the most 
unhealthy season of the year, were worries telling on his 
health ; yet none could have been avoided, since an 
agreement had already been made with King Guy. 
But there was Cyprus in reserve, and Richard showed 
no obstinacy in his conduct, for much against his own 
wish he consented to give the Kingdom to Conrad, as 
the price of French assistance. Hardly, however, had 
this decision been announced in Tyre when Conrad fell 

U 2 



284 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

a victim to the Assassins.* On the 28th of April, 1 192, he 
returned from a feast given by the Bishop of Beauvais,' 
grandson of Louis VI, in that city, when two young men 
attacked him near the custom house, and he fell from 
his horse with their daggers in his heart. One of the 
murderers was slain at once, the other, dragged from a 
church, declared that he had obeyed the orders of the 
Sheikh of the Mountain : both had been in Conrad's 
service awaiting their time. A letter written to the 
Duke of Austria, by the Sheikh, in the following year is 
said to have absolved King Richard of all knowledge 
of the plot ;f but the French suspicions were fatal to his 
enterprise, and they refused to follow him further. 
Henry of Champagne hastened to Tyre, and married 
Isabel, the heiress of the kingdom Conrad's widow 
though Humphrey of Toron was still alive.J 

The spring being now advanced, reconnaissances were 
pushed from Ascalon to Darum, and even to the walls 
of Jerusalem. Henry of Champagne]] was chosen king 
of the half-conquered kingdom, and joyfully received at 
Acre, whither he brought Isabel. The citizens came out 
with songs and dances, burning incense in procession, 
and decking the streets with silken awnings. Sixty 
thousand men in armour went out to meet him, and the 
clergy brought a fragment of the Holy Cross, with other 
relics, which he kissed. King Richard bestowed on Guy 
a better kingdom that of Cyprus in which the house 

* According to Ernoul (289-290) Conrad had previously pillaged a ship 
belonging to the Assassins at Tyre. 

+ Xegesta, No. 715, it is thought to be a forgery. 

+ J eo ff' d p - Vinsauf) V., 6-31. Ditto, 32-4 r. 

|| Henry was half nephew of Richard, r.nd of Fhil'p Augustus. 



THE THIRD CRUSADE. 285 

of Lusignan long ruled in peace, " there was not another 
king found," says the chronicler, "of more royal habits or 
character than he ... he was simple-minded, and 
unversed in political intrigue." The Templars had 
offered to buy Cyprus for their Order, but Richard gave 
it as a royal gift, and one more valuable than the king- 
dom which Guy had lost. 

The siege of Darum next occupied the English army. 
It was a fortress on the road to Egypt, south of Gaza, 
built about 1170 by King Amaury, with a deep ditch, 
and seventeen towers the only walled post garrisoned 
by Saladin in the plains. The walls were mined and 
after four days the place was taken by assault on the 
27th of May. The garrison was a small one, and 
Darum is now an open village with palms and ruins of 
a chapel. It however commanded the road to Egypt, 
and after it fell all the plains round Ascalon were 
cleared of Saracens to the foot of the hills. In this 
enterprise the French took no part, and King Richard's 
army was now less than half that which fought at 
Arsuf. They marched to Beit Jibrin, on the way to 
Jerusalem, suffering much from the mosquitos and the 
summer heat, but eager to reach the Holy City. After 
the capture of Beit Jibrin they returned for a time to 
Ascalon, but on the 9th of June reached Toron, at the 
foot of the hills on the road from Jaffa, and regained 
their former camp at Beit Nuba, twelve miles from 
Jerusalem. Here it would seem that some of the 
French from Acre, with Henry of Champagne, joined the 
force, and a council was appointed of five French nobles, 



286 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



five Templars, five Hospitallers, and five Syrian Franks. 
They advised a march on Egypt ; and it is remarkable 
that on these two occasions none but the English seem 
to have cared for the conquest of the Holy City. The 
king who meantime had captured a great caravan near 
Beersheba* accepted the advice, which was perhaps 
politically sound, since the strategic value of Jerusalem 
was small compared to the destruction of Saladin's base 
in the Delta ; but the English soldiers murmured, and 
returned much discontented to Jaffa on the 6th of July. 
Richard himself lost heart ; and heavy news came yet 
again from England. With most of his force he 
retreated to Acre, and began to prepare for the voyage 
home. 

These signs of weakness encouraged Saladin, who, 
marching swiftly from Toron at the foot of the Jerusalem 
hills, fell on Jaffa, and undermined the wall. The Turks 
poured into the town, massacring the citizens, staving 
in the wine barrels, and killing all the pigs. Wine and 
blood flowed in the streets, Christians and pigs were cast 

* The accounts of Jeoffrey de Vinsauf (vi. 4) and Boha ed Din of this 
Capture on the 2jrd of June quite agree. The former says King Richard 
marched by night to Galatia (Jelediyeh) sending to Ascalon for provisions, 
and made a second night's march to where the caravan had halted by a 
" Round Cistern." Boha ed Din (ii. 155) says it was one of three caravans 
from Egypt coming by Kerak, the desert, and the sea plain : that King 
Richard's army stayed the night at Tell es San, and marched by El Hesy 
to Khuweilfeh, which is evidently the "Round Cistern." since it has a 
well like those at Beersheba (Memoirs iii, p. 397.) Probably the English 
writer is best informed as to where Richard slept. Jelediyeh is only six 
miles west from Tell es Safi, and thence to Khuweilfeh is twenty-three 
miles. From Jelediyeh to Ascalon is eleven miles. The old proposal to 
place Galatia at Keratiyeh does not assist the question, as it is further from 
Tell es Safi. Tell el Hesy was on the route to Khuweilfeh, fourteen miles 
to the north-west. Boha ed DJn mentions the King's arrival at Tell es 
Safi separately. 



THE THIRD CRUSADE. 



together out of the gates. Only the citadel held out, 
and a swift ship was sent to fetch King Richard from 
Acre. The French refused to march, but Templars and 
Hospitallers hastened south by land, and the English 
went by sea, delayed three days by contrary winds at 
Haifa. The last day granted to the garrison of the 
citadel had well nigh come when King Richard leapt 
from his red ship into the surf at Jaffa, and fought his 
way on shore. 

Once more, on the 1st of August, 1192, the terror of 
Melek Rik, and of the English bows, fell on the Turks ; 
and in a mighty fight they were worsted and fled. The 
king returned covered with arrows, but victorious. To 
Saladin's envoys he spoke, as Boha ed Din says, " half 
seriously, half joking," saying " This Sultan is mighty, 
and there is none greater in this land of Islam. Why 
did he fly at my coming ? By God, I was unarmed 
and unready to fight. I have my sea shoes on still. 
Why did you fly ? " " God's goodness ! Jaffa, I should 
have said, could not be taken in two mo.nths, and he 
took it in three days." Henry of Champagne, who was 
ever loyal to his leader, also arrived at Jaffa, but only 
mustered fifty-five knights mostly mounted on mules r 
with bowmen and retainers. Both Pisans and Genoese 
assisted in this final effort, but the French remained in 
Acre. Saladin, unable to rally his forces, retired to 
Yazur, four miles from Jaffa. 

Thus the contest waged for four years in Palestine 
resulted in a drawn game, in which both players were 
wearied out, though new forces came from Mosul, and 



288 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

further fighting occurred rear Jaffa. The king was ill 
with fever, anxious to leave the country, and without 
money to prolong the war. Saladin had failed in every 
battle against him ; his resources were exhausted, and 
his troops refused to face the English, while all the 
plains from Antioch to Ascalon were strongly held by 
Chiistian troops. Thus at length both the great leaders 
were willing to conclude a truce, accepting what was 
done ; and Templars and Hospitallers alike advised the 
treaty.* 

It was agreed that Ascalon should be dismantled, and 
so remain for three years from the 2nd of September, 
1 192 : that Jaffa and the plains up to the mountains 
should be held by the Christians ; and pilgrims allowed 
to visit the Holy Sepulchre. Two Latin priests, and 
two deacons, were to remain in Jerusalem, and an equal 
number in Bethlehem. The terms were all that could be 
fairly asked, and the chronicler says alluding to un- 
friendly critics "Whosoever entertains a different 
opinion concerning this treaty, I would have him know 
that he will expose himself to the charge of perversely 
deviating from the truth." It will be found, in con- 
sidering later events, that the settlement made by 
Richard and Saladin was in effect the settlement of the 
whole Eastern question for a century after. A new 
Latin Kingdom was founded in Cyprus,f and every 

* Jeoff. de I'insauf, VI, 1-38, Boha ed Din, II, 170. The latter finds it 
equally nccessaiy to excuse the peace to Moslems ; but Saladin feared an 
all'ance of his great nephew el Mansur at Hamah with other rebels 
against him. 

t The history of Cyprus does not concern us. Amaury of Lusignan, 
Guy's brother, the last and fourth husband of Isabel, the half Greek 



THE THIRD CRUSADE. 289 

important seaport was regained in Syria, with almost 
all the lands owned by the military orders. This was 
no small result of four years of constant effort, and the 
credit of such success was mainly due to Richard Lion 
Heart. 

The king retired to Haifa for his health, for he was 
suffering from the worst form of Syrian fever, and on the 
pth of October following he set sail from Acre for 
France. The citizens lamented his departure ; and he 
left them hopes of his return. But he was destined only 
to live for seven more years ; and after such victories, 
and such long journeys, to fall before a little Norman 
fortress in his own dominions. Wrecked in the Adriatic 
by the winter storms, he tried to travel through Austria 
in disguise, and being discovered near Vienna, was 
imprisoned by Duke Leopold ; for thirteen months he 
lay in a dungeon at Tyernstein on the Danube, while 
none knew where he was. .The Emperor, Henry VI, 
hearing of his capture, removed him to Trifels, near 
Landau, where according to the popular romance 
Blondel, a gentleman of Arras, recognised his voice 
singing a well-known air ; but another year passed by 
before his ransom was paid, through the exertions of 
Queen Eleanor and Pope Celestin ; while Philip of 
France invaded Normandy, and Earl John spread 

daughter of King Amaury of Jerusalem, succeeded Guy in 1194, and 
called himself Amauiy II ; he died in 1205. His son by Isabel was 
Amaury III, who died next year. Hugh I, son of Amaury II, by 
Eschiva of Ibelin his second wife, ruled till 1218 : Henry I his son till 
1253. He was followed by his son Hugh II, who died in 1267. The 
succession then passed to Hugh III, son of Isabel, sister of Henry I, and 
he died in 1284. His son John died in 1285, and Henry II brother of 
the last ruled till 1324 A.D. 



290 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

reports of his death. Barons and people were faithful 
to their hero ; and the mock trial, in which he was 
accused of having made too easy a peace with Saladin, 
led to no result. It was too clearly due to enmity and 
envy, felt by princes who, like the Emperor and Philip, 
had done much less to help the Holy Land. The 
ransom asked was paid, and King Richard landed at 
Sandwich on the 2Oth of March, 1 194. Five years later 
after recovering Normandy, he was stricken at Chalus 
by an arrow from the crossbow of Bertrame de Gourdon, 
and died in the arms of Berengaria, commanding with 
his last words that Bertrame should be spared. 

On the 4th of March, 1193 A.D., Saladin also, the 
greatest of the Moslems, died, of fever, at the early age 
of fifty- six. They buried him at Damascus in the mosque 
courtyard, opposite the square building which had once 
been a cathedral, and where the " magic wall of glass " 
was a mosaic, erected of glass by Byzantine architects. 
Outside the little chapel of his sepulchre still stands the 
great lintel of the earlier temple, supported on mighty 
pillars, and bearing in Greek the motto : 

"Thy Kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting Kingdom, 
And Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations." 

Since Omar and Muhammad no Moslem like Saladin 
had arisen, and after him none other such arose ; for 
though Bibars carried out his work, a century later, 
to its completion, the cruel Egyptian Sultan cannot be 
compared to one who was brave and just, merciful to all, 
tolerant even of Latin priests, and wisely prudent as 
well as determined and active. Among all who opposed 



THE THIRD CRUSADE. 291 

him he found but one who was his equal, in Richard 
Lion Heart, the hero of the third Crusade. 

Saladin's ambition did not stop at the redemption of 
Asia for Islam, for to his timid follower, who saw for the 
first time the winter sea near Ascalon, he said, " when by 
God's help not a Frank is left on this coast I will divide 
my dominions among my children, and bid them 
farewell, and sail on this sea to its islands, till not one 
unbeliever in God is left on this earth, or I will die in the 
attempt. And what is the most glorious of deaths ? 
that in God's path then I will strive for the gate of 
that death." His parting words to Melek edh Dhaher 
his son were not less characteristic. " I commend you 
to the Most High, the giver of all good. Do thou His 
will, for that is the way of peace. Beware of bloodshed : 
trust not in that : for spilt blood never sleeps ; and seek 
the hearts of thy people, and care for them ; for thou 
art sent by God, and by me, for their good : try to gain 
the hearts of the emirs, the rulers, and the nobles : 
I have become great as I am because I won men's 
hearts by gentleness and kindness. Nourish no hatred 
of anyone, for death spares none. Be prudent in 
dealing with men, for God will not pardon if they do not 
forgive ; but between Him and thee He will pardon, if 
thou dost repent, for He is most gracious." 

Boha ed Din, his faithful secretary, who had been made 
Kadi of Jerusalem about 1188 A.D., gives us a detailed 
account of his last days, and of his patience and 
mildness. " Never before had his face shown such joy 
at seeing me," he writes, " and he pressed me in his arms 



292 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

and his eyes filled with tears. May God have mercy 
on him . . . On Thursday he sent for me once more, 
and I found him seated in a summer house in the 
garden with his little children round him. He asked if 
any one were awaiting audience, and on hearing there were 
some envoys from the Franks ... he gave orders 
for them to be brought in. One of his little children 
the Emir Abu Bekr for whom he had a great affection, 
and whom he used to pet and play with, was there also. 
Now when the child caught sight of these folk with their 
shaven chins, their close cut hair, and their strange 
apparel, he was afraid and began to cry. On this the 
Sultan excused himself to the envoys, and dismissed 
them without hearing what they had to say."* 

The lassitude which precedes typhoid fever was even 
then weighing on his energies, and on the next day he 
caught a chill when riding out of Damascus to meet 
the pilgrims from Mecca. On the ninth day of the 
fever he was unconscious for a time, and the Sheikh 
Abu Jafer, who watched beside him, repeated the Koran 
Surahs by his bedside. 

"I came," he told the chronicler, "to the words, 
' He is the God beside whom there is no other God : 
He knows both the seen and the unseen,' and I heard 
him utter these words, ' It is true,' and this just as he 
was passing away, it was a sign of God's favour. Thank 
God for it." " I have been told," says Boha ed Din, 
" that while the Sheikh Abu Jafer read these words, 
' There is no God but He, in Him I have set my trust,' 
* Boha ed Din, II, Chaps. 172-182. 



THE THIRD CRUSADE. 293 



the sick man smiled ; his face lighted up ; and so he 
went peacefully to God. Never since the death of the 
four first Khalifs," he concludes, " never since that time 
has the faith, or have the faithful, suffered such a blow 
as that which lighted on them when the Sultan died." 

Looking back to this heroic age we too can echo the 
verse which Boha ed Din subscribes beneath his loving 
account of Saladin's hard-spent life : 

" So passed those years and men, and seem 
Both years and men to be a dream." 



294 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 

THE agreement reached by Saladin and Richard prac- 
tically settled the Eastern question for almost a century. 
For fifty years the balance of improvement was on the 
whole in favour of the Christians. The great Moslem 
left no successor able to carry on his work ; and, in 
spite of fluctuations, the Latin power increased, and 
their possessions spread further inland. The main 
features of the history of this period were, the increased 
influence of the pope and of the military orders, the 
conquest of Constantinople, and the new policy of 
Frederic II of Germany. The growth of trade, and of 
literature, in the East, was also very remarkable, till the 
great defeat at Gaza marked a change in the Christian 
fortunes, which then began to decay until, just a hundred 
years after Acre was won, it was again finally lost. 

The truce which had been made by Saladin and 
Richard was to last three years from September, 1192, 
and allowed free trade to Christians. The Moslem 
dominions were divided among Saladin's heirs, and the 
period of rest, instead of strengthening their cause, was 
wasted in dissensions. Three of Saladin's sons ruled 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 295 

at Aleppo, Damascus, and Cairo, and Melek el Adel his 
brother in Mesopotamia. The sons fought, and many 
Emirs became independent, until finally the uncle be- 
came supreme ruler, and head of the Eyubite house. 
When the peace expired Pope Celestin III, now ninety 
years of age, preached a Fourth Crusade. Richard and 
Philip were too busy watching each other to listen, and 
letters to Sancho VII, King of Navarre, brought no 
response.* The Emperor Henry VI had been excom- 
municated, but making peace with the Pope he raised 
forty thousand men in Italy, who, aided by the Dukes of 
Saxony and Brabant, set out for Acre by sea. The 
first division on landing, without waiting as Henry of 
Champagne advised for the Saxons and Brabanters, 
marched into the Nablus mountains where Melek el Adel 
defeated them, and then took Jaffa. About the same 
time Henry of Champagne died, falling with a balcony 
of his palace which gave way at Acre. Isabel was 
married soon after to a fourth husband Amaury, 
brother of King Guy who had succeeded to the throne 
of Cyprus. Her daughter Mary, by Conrad of Mont- 
ferrat, was heiress to the kingdom of Jerusalem, and 
about 1210 A.D. wedded John of Brienne the third 
titular king who never ruled in Jerusalem itself.f 

The Saxons had been delayed, fighting Moors in 
Portugal. Reaching Acre they found Jaffa dismantled 
and Beirut taken by Moslems. Melek el Adel met them 
on the Kasimiyeh river, north of Tyre, and was in turn 

* Regesta, Nos. 728, 752. 
t Ditto, Nos. 741, 760. 



296 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

defeated. He retired wounded to Damascus, and .the 
Christians occupied Sidon, Latakia, Beirut and Gebal, 
capturing much warlike material and freeing many cap- 
tives. Toron in Upper Galilee was attacked, and the walls 
mined, by forces under Conrad, bishop of Hildesheim. 
Chancellor of the Empire, but through sudden panic 
the army was broken up. All the shore towns as far 
as Ascalon remained however in the power of the 
Christians, and another three years' truce was made in 
1198 A.D. 

The Emperor Henry VI, resisted by Tancred, had 
meanwhile taken from him Naples and Sicily, and 
married Constance, last of the royal Norman race in 
Italy : he died while his army was still in Palestine. 
The Templars had again been accused of treachery in 
the Toron affair, and of a secret league with Melek el 
Adel. The Germans, who rebuilt Jaffa, quarrelled with 
the Syrian Franks : some were massacred while drunk 
at the last named city, and hearing of the Emperor's 
death, the rest went home. Two short imperial reigns fol- 
lowed that of Philip of Suabia, brother to Henry VI, 
lasting one year, and that of Otho IV, Count of Poitou 
for fourteen, before the accomplished Frederic II, son of 
Henry VI, acceded ; and during this time neither Eng- 
land, France, nor Germany sent aid to Palestine. The 
aged Pope Celestin also died in 1198, and Innocent IIJ 
was elected his successor at the early age of thirty-three, 
holding the chair of St. Peter for the unusual space of 
eighteen years. His energy in respect to Syrian affairs 
was great. He sent a ship-load of arms to help the 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 297 

Templars and Hospitallers, whom he exhorted to vigil- 
ance in 1 199, but owing to the truce no action was 
taken,* and his representations to the Kings of England 
and France were unheeded, as were his letters to Alexius 
of Constantinople. Germany was intent on the struggle 
of Otho of Saxony, the Papal nominee for the Imperial 
Crown with Philip of Suabia. France was for some 
monzhs under interdict because of Philip's divorce of 
Ingeburge, sister of the Danish king. It was not till 
I2OOA.D. that further forces were sent, on the expiry 
of the truce. 

This fifth Crusade was heralded by a miracle. A 
letter from heaven was found suspended on the altar 
of St. Simon of Jerusalem, exhorting Christians to 
observe the Lord's day.f A wonder working cure" 
Foulkes of Neuilly-sur-Marne was also bidden by the 
young Pope to preach the Holy War. Thibaut IV 
Count of Champagne,}: and Louis, Count of Blois and 
Chartres, related to both the French and English kings, 
brought a small force of two thousand five hundred 
knights, from Navarre and Champagne, and sent to 
hire ships at Venice. Their expedition led to unex- 
pected results, but they never set eyes on Palestine 
at all. 

The Greek emperor was eager to recover Cyprus, and 
Alexius wrote to the Pope in 1201 A.D., asking that 
Amaury II might be excommunicated if he refused 
to give it up, but this Innocent denied him. The 

* Regesta, Nos. 760, 763. t Regesfa, No. 778. 

I Bi other of Henry of Champagne Regesta, No. 782. 



THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 



Greeks were growing ever weaker, and the Latins 
ever stronger. The ambition of the Venetians, now 
superior at sea to either Pisa or Genoa, pointed to 
the conquest of Byzantium. The loss of Cyprus was 
the first sign of the failing power of the emperors of 
Constantinople. The Venetians had imitated their 
Pisan rivals, in seeking to promote their trade by 
treaties with Moslems, and had no great interest in 
Jerusalem. When Count Thibaut asked for ships the 
Doge Dandolo demanded eighty-five thousand silver 
marks for fifty galleys and other vessels to carry 
some thirty-five thousand men in all, and during the 
delays which followed Count Thibaut died, and so did 
Foulques, the preacher already suspected of misuse of 
funds committed to him. 

Boniface of Montferrat, brother of the murdered 
Conrad (accompanied by Baldwin, Count of Flanders, 
brother-in-law of Thibaut), took command of the 
small force waiting near Venice, but had no money 
to pay for ships. The Doge proposed that the Cru- 
saders should pay by capturing Zara, sixty leagues 
from Venice east of the Adriatic, which the Hun- 
garians had seized. Meanwhile Isaac, the dethroned 
emperor whom Alexius, his brother, had expelled 
from Byzantium, sent his son to Philip of Suabia, 
who had married his daughter Irene. Philip being 
at war with Otho, and unable to help, the Greek 
prince went on to Venice to ask help of the em- 
barking Crusaders. The Doge and his allies set out, 
and having subdued Trieste, and pillaged Zara (which 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 299 

offered no defence) on the loth of November, 1202 A.u., 
were there overtaken by the son of Isaac also named 
Alexius like his uncle. Caring nothing for the Pope's 
wishes, and unwilling to attack his allies of Damascus, 
Doge Dandolo led the new Crusaders on an expedition 
intended for the benefit of Venice only. By Easter, 
1203, Corfu had submitted, and the fleet proceeded to 
Negropont, where the Greek prince was proclaimed 
emperor. Thence they sailed to Abydos, and on the 
6th of July reached Byzantium. 

The usurping Alexius was camped on the heights 
of Pera, but afraid to meet the Latins. Baldwin of 
Flanders led the way : Galata was seized, and forces 
landed at Scutari. Flemish and Picard troops attacked 
Stambul, and Boniface of Montferrat established a camp 
of Burgundians, Lombards, and men of Champagne, 
Piedmont, and Savoy. The defenders included the 
Danish and English mercenaries of the Varanger guard, 
but the resistance was feeble. Dandolo, the blind and 
aged Doge, whose ships blockaded the city, landed in 
triumph ; and Ahxius fled, leaving Isaac free. The 
Pope declared in favour of the younger Alexius, who 
was crowned in Byzantium, but he distrusted the Cru- 
saders who still delayed their voyage to Syria till the 
next Easter should come. 

The year that followed was marked by desperate 
attempts to shake off the Latin yoke, during which 
the new emperor was strangled by rebels, and Isaac 
his father died. Constantinople was again besieged, 
and taken in four days, on the loth of April, 1204. 

X 2 






3 oo THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

A terrible sack of the city followed. St. Sophia was 
desecrated, and Justinian's body robbed of its jewels. 
The Franks and Venetians threw off the mask, and 
sought no Greek candidate for the throne. Baldwin 
of Flanders became the first Latin ruler of the great 
city, with a counsel of twelve Franks and twelve 
Venetians to advise him. 

The astuteness of the Italians was shown by their 
arrangements. They took indeed half Constantinople 
to be ruled by the laws of Venice but they left 
to their allies the difficult task of defending the main- 
land. Bithynia in Asia, Roumania, Thrace, and Greece, 
formed Baldwin's kingdom ; other Asiatic provinces fell 
to the Count of Blois ; and Boniface of Montferrat had 
Crete, and the fief of Thessalonica ; but gave it up to 
Venice in return for grants in Asia Minor. These 
possessions were, however, only half conquered, and 
entailed struggles with Bulgarians and other fierce 
tribes. On the other hand, the Doge received not 
only a secure possession of the two great trading 
cities of the empire Byzantium and Thessalonica 
but also all the Cyclades and Sporades islands easily 
protected by the Venetian fleet, and connected with 
Venice by possession of the Ionian group. The 
trading route with Central Asia was thus made safe, 
whatever migh't be the fate of the new Latin Empire. 
The Doge also claimed the Thessalian shore, and 
towns like Adrianople further north. 

The Pope saw with satisfaction a Latin hierarchy 
established in the eld seat of Greek schism, but did not 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS, 301 

scruple to accuse the supposed Crusaders of worldly 
aims. As regards the disestablished emperor the elder 
Alexius he fled from his prison to join the Turks, and 
died in a monastery. In 1206 A.D. the great Doge 
Dandolo died, and was buried in St. Sophia. Baldwin, 
defeated by Tartars and Bulgarians, disappeared, and 
Henry of Hainault, who succeeded him, ruled over the 
ruins of the land conquests ; but for a long time after 
the Venetians held the islands ; and dukes of Pares, 
sires of Mycenae, and princes of Naxos, became vassals 
of the proudest of Italian trading cities. 

In 1217 the Imperial crown of Constantinople was 
given by Honorius I II to Peter II of Courtenay, grand- 
son of Louis VI of France, and married. to Yolande 
heiress of the house of Baldwin of Flanders, who had 
followed his cous ; n, King Philip, to the third Crusade. 
He died within a year, but established a Frank dynasty, 
which endured for forty-four years till the rise of 
Michael Pal?eologus. 

This conquest, while clearly shewing that the spirit 
of the age was no longer one in which crusades for a 
religious object roused the enthusiasm of Europe, was 
important in adding strength to the Latin cause in 
Asia. 

The hopes of the Latins at Byzantium were for the 
moment extravagant Kingdoms were gambled for, 
and Baghdad and Mosul assigned by throwing dice ; 
but this was only a momentary elation after easy 
victory. It was, however, not only in Byzantium that 
the Latin power was newly established for even in 



302 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Armenia* the Pope and the Templars were for a time 
successful. 

Boemund III, grandson of Raymond of Poictiers, and, 
by his mother's side, descended from the first conqueror 
of Antioch, was established in that city in 1 164 A.D., and 
attacked Armenia ; but thirty years later the Armenian 
king, Leo II, seized him, and invaded his province ; and 
peace was only made when his daughter Alix wedded 
Rupon of the Mountain, nephew of Leo. In May, 
1199, Leo II wrote to Pope Innocent III, declaring 
his desire that all his kingdom should accept the 
Latin creed, deploring the weakness of the Christian 
States in the East, and asking help. He announced 
that Rupon, 'his nephew, had been baptised the year 
before, when marrying Alix, and was chosen to be the 
heir of Boemund III, but that the Military Orders had 
declared for Boemund IV, brother of Alix. The Pope in 
reply exhorted him to turn his arms against the Sara- 
cens. At the same time the Catholicus of Armenia 
wrote to Innocent III a friendly letter, and in answer was 
commended for obedience to Rome. Two years later 
Leo II accepted the presence of a Legate. He invited 
the Templars to join his army against the Turks, sending 
a sum of some ^8,OOO for their acceptance, and promising 
castles and lands for them in Armenia after the war. 
He also gave free trade to the Venetians in his terri- 
tories. 

* Regesta, Nos. 755-6, 761, 785-6, 795, 798, 805, 817, 820, 838-9, 
841-2, 842-3, 851, 862-3. Thoros of Armenia was succeeded in 1175 by 
Rupon II, who was given Tarsus by Boemund III of Antioch ; he died in 
1188, and Leo II, who succeeded him, had married a niece of Boemund. 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 303 

The new alliance was not long peacefully continued, 
for in 1204 A.D. Leo II wrote again to Pope Innocent III, 
as to quarrels with the new Legate regarding the succes- 
sion, and the secret agreements of the Templars. The 
aim of the Armenian intrigues was to make the heir of 
the throne Prince of Antioch, and for this reason tie 
Templars were now expelled from the kingdom. An 
interdict was then pronounced, which led to peace being 
made for a time, though the Legate still opposed Prince 
Rupon's succession. Four years later the Latin cause 
prevailed, and Rupon was finally crowned by consent o{ 
Pope Honorius III on the i6th of December, 1220 A.D. 
He occupied Antioch from 1216 to 1219, and the prin- 
cipality was thus added to the Armenian kingdom. He, 
however, died in 1222, when Boemund IV recovered 
Antioch. The Knights Hospitallers were encouraged 
by grants in Armenia in 1210 A.D.; but Leo II refused 
to restore the Templars. In 12(3 A.Di Innocent III 
threatened excommunication, unless the "intruding Greek 
clergy " were expelled, and the Latin Orders received into 
favour ; but on the death of this Pope three years later 
a more conciliatory policy seems to have been thought 
advisable. 

Through their establishment in Armenia the Latins 
came into closer contact with the Georgians* of the 
Caucasus ; and great hopes were raised that a warlike 
Christian people might be thus induced to aid in 
attacking the Saracens on the north of Mesopotamia. 
In 1213 A.D. they attacked the now crumbling empire of 

* Regesla, Nos. 868, 967. 



304 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Baghdad; but in 1221 their power was brought to 
nought by the Tartar victory at Tim's. A temporary 
success three years later led them to promise help to the 
Emperor Frederic II; but, like the Armenian alliance, 
and the schemes for converting the Tartars themselves, 
this expectation failed when the new forces from 
Central Asia began to press upon the northern provinces 
of the Syrian kingdom. 

During this period, while these various extensions of 
Latin power were being accomplished, the Franks in 
Syria were also becoming stronger ; but the country 
suffered from a terrible earthquake in 1201 A.D. 
Damascus, Tyre, and Nablus were laid in ruins: the 
walls of Acre and Tripoli fell on the 2Oth of May ; and 
Hamath and Baalbek also suffered. At the same time a 
very low Nile in Egypt brought a fearful famine, followed 
by pestilence.* In consequence of these troubles, and of 
the war between Antioch and Armenia, and the invasion 
of the principality by the ever ready Sultan of Aleppo, 
many knights and barons left their lands.f John of 
Brienne brought with him only three hundred knights, 
and eighty thousand livres, for the maintenance of his 
small seaside kingdom. He was, however, popular with 
the Italians, being himself the brother of King Gauthier 
of Apulia. In 1204 the Pisans and Genoese made up 
their quarrels in Acre, but lay in danger of excommuni- 
cation, such as fell on the Venetians, since both these 
States took example from the Doges, and made treaties 

* Kegesta, Nos. 787, 780. 

t Ditto, 793, 794, 808, 825, 826-7, 8j6, 858. 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 305 

with the Moslems who were then at peace with the 
.Latins. The Pisans renewed their ancient understanding 
with Egypt, where the Venetians also were encouraged 
by Melek el Adel. The Venetians had a treaty in 1208 
with Saladin's son at Aleppo. The jealousy of the three 
cities led to further quarrels in 1212 A.D., in Acre, where 
the quarters occupied by each community adjoined along 
the sea wall, east and west. 

Pope Innocent III did not disdain to correspond even 
with infidels in the interest of the Christians.* In 1211 
A.D. he wrote to Melek edh Dhaher, Sultan of Aleppo, 
in favour of the patriarch of Antioch ; and in 1213 to 
Melek el Adel at Damascus to demand Jerusalem, having 
heard from the Templars that the Sultan was willing to 
make its neighbourhood a tributary Christian province. 
This, indeed, would appear to have been an agreement 
which the Moslem rulers were ready to make even much 
later, for the sake of peace, but Pope Innocent III 
became more violent and imperious as he grew older, 
and rejected any such compromise. He quarrelled with 
Armenia, and with his own Legate ; he incited Simon de 
Montfort to persecute the Albigenses of Languedoc ; he 
drove the Poles, Saxons, Norwegians, and Livonians, 
against the pagan Prussians of the Oder and Vistula ; 
he supported Otho against Philip ; and first instituted 
the Inquisition. His intolerance made heretics of the 
Vaudois, the Apostolics, the Popelicanes, and the 
Aymeristes, who agreed only in hatred of the Church 
of Rome. The peaceful policy of Frederic II was the 
* Jtegesta, Nos, 852, 864. 



306 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

exact reverse of that of Innocent III, and aimed at 
making the best of actual facts, while the Church still 
sought to dominate the Eastern sects, and trusted in 
shadowy alliances with Georgians and Tartars. 

Within this Pontificate, in 1212 A.D., occurred the 
"Child's Crusade" the most cruel delusion, and the 
most wicked fraud, witnessed during the two centuries of 
this period. France was at that time in a state of turmoil 
throughout. King John in England, after the great 
quarrel with the Pope, and the loss of all the Angevine 
possessions on the Continent, had taken sides with 
Flanders, and had defeated the French at sea ; but the 
invasion of England was preparing. Languedoc was 
desolated by the wars against the Albigenses, and full of 
strange doctrines, and hatred of the Roman persecutors. 
The failures of the later Crusaders were attributed, not to 
the real causes want of unity and of good judgment, or 
indifference to their professed objects but to the im- 
purity of their lives, and to their dissolute manners. Cer- 
tain fanatical priests, successors of those who believed in 
the miraculous letter from heaven, and in the wonders 
wrought by the Cure Foulques, preached throughout 
France and Germany a new Crusade, in which the faith 
and prayers of children were to do what the arms of 
Templars and Hospitallers could not effect. The sea 
was to be dried up before them, and the Moslems to 
surrender the Sepulchre and the Cross. Fifty thousand 
of these innocents both boys and girls are said to have 
inarched to Marseilles and Genoa, singing hymns and 
waving branches ; and they were attended by a mob of 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 307 

the lowest class, which robbed and maltreated them on 
their road. Parents obeyed the preaching of the monks, 
and credited their miracles and visions. The madness of 
the people was turned to account by villainous traders. 
Hugh Ferreus and William Porcus, merchants of Mar- 
seilles, embarked the children on seven ships, professing 
to carry them, for love of Heaven, to Palestine. Their 
trade was that of kidnapping for the Alexandrian 
market. Two ships were wrecked, and all on board 
went down : the fate of those sold in Egypt was worse ; 
and none returned to their homes. The Pope built a 
chapel on St. Peter's Isle, where the ships perished ; but 
the kidnappers were finally hanged, not for this evil 
deed, but on a charge of attempting to assassinate the 
Emperor Frederic II. 

Meanwhile John of Brienne was a widower ; and, 
fearing that the truce with the Moslems would not 
continue, he married, by advice of his barons and pre- 
lates, a daughter of the King of Armenia,* in 1214 A.U. 
A Crusade was preached in France by Jacques de Vitry, 
then an Augustin canon of Villebrouk in Brabantf : King 
Philip Augustus gave a fortieth part of his revenue ; and 
the submissive John of England promised to take the 
Cross, but had no power over English barons it was the 
year before the signing of Magna Charta. The sixth 
Crusade was led by Andrew II, son of King Bela of 
Hungary, who ruled Dalmatia and Croatia, Bosnia and 

* Regesta, No. 873. 

t Eishop of Acre in 1217 ; he left Palestine in 1227 ; resigned two years 
later ; was created cardinal and legate and titular patriarch of Jerusalem. 
He died in 1240. 



308 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Galicia. It bsgan by the attack on the Prussian pagans 
on the Baltic shores, and in 1216 Pope Innocent III 
died at Perugia wh'le striving to make peace between 
the Pisans and Genoese in the interests of Syria. Their 
disputes in Acre were, however, not settled till six years 
later, after the Crusade was over.* In 1217 the Hun- 
garians left Spalatro in Venetian ships, while others 
came from Brindisi, Marseilles, and Genoa. It was the 
largest army that had been assembled at Acre since that 
which defeated Saladin at Arsuf; but they were ill 
supplied with provisions ; and Syria was suffering from 
dearth. No opposition was offered to their advance. 

The empire of Saladin had indeed fallen on evil days. 
The great Tartar advance was impending : Melek el 
Adel had abdicated ; and the provinces were ruled by 
his sons at Baalbek, Damascus, Bozrah, and other cities. 
Melek el Kamil, his eldest, was at Cairo ; but his sub- 
jects were disaffected. In 1218 Melek el Adel Seif ed 
Din Saladin's brother died ; and the fears of the 
Christians in Egypt led to a general panic and flight. 
The new Crusaders marched inland to Mount Gilboa, 
and, descending to the Jordan, bathed in the Sea of 
Galilee.t They then attacked Mount Tabor ; but, rind- 
ing a fortress on its summit, retired after two furious 
but vain assaults. A Turkish garrison had been placed 
there in 1212 A.D., but was withdrawn after this contest ; 
the fortress was levelled by Melek el Adel's order, and 
the walls of Jerusalem also dismantled. In October a 

* Revest a, Nos. 955-7. 

t Regesta, Nos. 901, 913, 914, 924, 930, 936, 941, 946-8, 964, 569. 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 309 

council was held in the camp at Acre, by the King of 
Hungary : it was too late in the year for action, and the 
storms discouraged the army in their camp south of 
Tyre. King Andrew left his troops, for the winter, in 
Palestine, and went to Armenia, where he obtained the 
head of St. Peter, the arm of St. Thomas, and seven of 
the waterpots from Cana of Galilee. He also probably 
obtained useful information as to the Tartar advance. 

When the spring-time returned a further force of 
Frisians arrived, from Cologne and the Rhine, in 1218 
A.D. Coming by sea they had fought the Moors, whose 
power was now beginning to fail in Portugal. Leopold of 
Austria was chosen commander of the army, but the 
Legate was the moving spirit in the events that followed. 
It was decided that the time had come for the con- 
quest of Egypt, after which the rest of Palestine 
would fall an easy prey, for the northern Moslems were 
being attacked in rear by the Tartars in Persia. The 
Crusaders assembled at Chateau Pelerin, the great 
Templar castle, newly built on the shore west of Car- 
mel, near the little fort of District, found there by King 
Richard. Thence they proceeded to the Delta, and 
besieged Damietta for seventeen months. The Duke of 
Austria returned home, leaving John of Brienne in 
command. 

A remarkable incident of this year was the attempt 
of St. Francis of Assisi to convert the Sultan of Egypt. 
The pious founder of the Minorites went alone to see 
Melek el Kamil, who heard him preach the faith, and 
sent him safely back. The opinion of a Cologne 



310 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

professor Oliver supported the simple belief of St. 
Francis ; but he had not the saint's courage in enforcing 
his doctrine. Oliver wrote to the Sultan urging him to 
accept the true faith, and to restore the Holy City to 
the Christians. He also wrote to the Moslem learned 
the Ulema exhorting them to belief in Christ. These 
admonitions were due to the clemency, and tolerant 
character, of a highly cultured sultan, which bore fruit 
of a very different nature ; but in the war round 
Damietta we find, side by side, a true Christian preach- 
ing his Master in peril of martyrdom, and a legate of 
the Pope insisting on war when peace was offered. 
Melek el Kamil offered, while the siege of Damietta 
continued, to give up Jerusalem : to free all Christian 
captives : and to pay a large sum towards the rebuilding 
of the walls. The legate refused, and gained a personal 
victory to the disgust of John of Brienne when 
Damietta was taken and sacked. The Duke of Bavaria 
joined with four hundred German knights ; and Italians 
from Milan, Pisa, and Genoa followed. But the new 
leaders refused to obey Cardinal Pelagius the legate 
and he was forced to send for King John of Brienne. 
He, however, persuaded the Templars and Hospitallers 
to support him, and the Christian army marched to 
Mansurah, on the Damietta branch of the Nile, thirty 
miles from the sea. The force included Italians of 
Apulia and Sicily, Spaniards, Gascons, Germans, and 
French, with ships from Venice, Genoa, and Pisa : but 
it was August, and the Nile was rising, while rumours 
came of forces marching from Emcsa, Bozrah, and 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 311 

Damascus. An Egyptian fleet cut off the army from 
its base, and Cardinal Pelagius was forced to sue for 
peace. He became himself a hostage, with other 
principal chiefs. Damietta was again surrendered to 
the Moslems, and all the advantages offered by Melek 
el Kamil were thus lost through the obstinacy of the 
Legate. Once more, as in King Amaury's time, the 
Delta was saved, not by Moslem courage but by Father 
Nile. 

So ended the sixth Crusade, and so also the eighth 
was to end. The extremes of opinion in the thirteenth 
century are marked by a Church, on the one hand, 
which had permitted monks to preach the Child's 
Crusade, and which had refused the free offer of Jeru- 
salem ; and by the policy of Frederic II on the other, 
which aimed at peaceful settlement, irrespective of 
religious prejudice. Thus the next incident in the 
history of Syria was an attempt which resulted in 
a Christian prince suffering excommunication when 
engaged in freeing the Holy City, and in that city 
itself being laid under interdict, when occupied by 
Christians. 

The new Emperor Frederic II proved yet more 
contumacious towards the Popes Honorius III and 
Gregory IX- than his father had been towards Inno- 
cent III. Frederic is said to have been an accom- 
plished prince, a good Arabic scholar, and fond of 
artists and poets, many of whom were Moslems. He 
was politic and ambitious ; but if we may judge from 
his treatment of Yolande, was selfish in his aims, and 



312 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM, 

unreliable. John of Brienne journeyed to France, 
England, and Germany in 1224 A.D., to find Philip 
Augustus dead, and his son Louis VIII at war with 
Henry III of England. During the three years of 
Louis' reign this war was waged in Poitou, and the 
Pope stirred up the Lombards against the Emperor 
Frederic. In Languedoc the Albigenses still were 
fighting, and there was war in Spain with the Moors. 
But Frederic met King John of Brienne at Brindisi, and 
married Yolande his daughter, thus becoming heir of 
the kingdom of Jerusalem. Three years were lost in the 
struggle with the Lombards, and it was now ten since 
the sixth Crusade began; but at length, in 1227 A.D., 
the emperor left Brindisi for the East. 

The new Pope Gregory IX was old and obstinate, 
and renewed the excommunication launched against 
Frederic by Honorius III ; but the emperor chased 
him from Rome, and wrote to Melek el Kamil in 1228, 
asking for Jerusalem, and received in reply an embassy 
with presents.* The Pope forbade the emperor to go 
to Syria, but Frederic set out with fifty ships, and six 
hundred knights, leaving most of his army in Sicily, 
and arrived safely at Acre. 

The Masters of the Temple and the Hospital owed 
allegiance only to the Pope, they were at once forbidden 
to aid the excommunicated emperor ; but against this 
papal garrison in Syria reliance could be placed on the 
younger Teutonic Order, already growing powerful, and 

* Regesta, Nos. 992, 997-1001, icc8, ioiC-i6, 1022-3 1025, 1040^ 
1043, 1053, 1061, 1070, 1079, icSi, 1083, ic88, 1094-5, IC 99> II01 - 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 313 

willing to help the German cause. Frederic's intentions 
were peaceful ; and in the winter of 1228 A.D. he met 
Melek el Kamil south of Csesarea as a friend. In 
Sicily he had already received the Moslem envoy Fakr 
ed Din when the philosophy of Averroes the famous 
Moorish disciple of Aristotle born a century earlier at 
Kordova was discussed, and problems in philosophy 
and geometry were sent by the cultured emperor to the 
Egyptian sultan. A peace was thus easily established ; 
to last ten years and ten months from the 2Oth of 
February, 1229 A.D. Jerusalem, and Bethlehem, and all 
the villages from Acre to Jaffa, were surrendered by 
Egypt, with Nazareth and Toron in Upper Galilee, and 
the fortresses of Jaffa, Caesarea, and Sidon. The walls 
of Jerusalem were not to be rebuilt ; and the mosque was 
to be left in the city, with free worship for Moslems. 

This agreement, which would now be thought a fair 
and final settlement of a bitter dispute, was accepted 
neither by Christians nor by Moslems. The emperor 
and the sultan were centuries before their time. The 
Moslems of Jerusalem cursed Melek el Kamil : the Pope 
commanded the patriarch to lay an interdict on the 
Holy City. The Templars refused to admit Frederic 
into Chateau Pelerin, and proposed to the sultan his 
murder in the Jordan Valley which letter Melek el 
Kamil sent to his ally. Throned in the Holy Sepulchre 
church, which no Christian prince had entered for forty 
years, Frederic II placed the crown on his own head. 
The new territory in Galilee was given to the Teutonic 
order; and when the interdict was placed on Acre, for 

Y 



314 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

such time as Frederic should remain in the city, he 
shut the gates, and flogged the monks in the streets 
during Holy Week. 

The Papal army then marched on Naples, and 
Frederic returned to Europe. John of Brienne* had quar- 
relled with his terrible son-in-law, who had neglected 
Yolande, and he aided the Pope and the Lombards ; 
but Frederic defeated them, and all that Gregory IX 
could do was to command the faithful neither to eat, 
nor drink, nor speak with the apostate emperor. During 
this ten years' peace, however, the Christian possessions 
in Palestine increased almost to their ancient extent, 
and the truce was faithfully observed by the Moslems. 
In 1232 the Pope proposed to break it, and in the 
following February sent the Minorites as missionaries to 
convert Melek el Ashraf, the Sultan of Damascus, and the 
rulers of Baghdad and Cairo.f Other monks went to 
Iconium; and an envoy from the sultan was sent to Pope 
and Emperor, who now had entered into treaty together. 
The Dominicans and Franciscans preached peace in 
Europe, for new troubles began to loom in the far East. 

* John of Brienne was elected Emperor of Constantinople in 1228, 
Baldwin de Courtney, the heir to the throne, being then a child : he 
married the sister of Yolande, and succeeded John in 1237. 

t In this year, on 3rd of May, a contest was waged between the subjects 
of the Emperor and of Henry I of Cyprus. Richard Filangier, who'was the 
Emperor's bailiff of Syria, met John of Ibelin and his knights at Hamsin 
(Casale Imbert), near Acre, and defeated them. John of Ibelin was bailiff 
in the name of the King of Cyprus, who claimed Jerusalem. Richard 
overran Cyprus, but was expelled next year (1233 A.D.), and John re- 
asserted his claims in Palestine on behalf of his master. He died in 
1236. Queen Alice of Cyprus, daughter of Isabel and of Henry of 
Champagne, and widow of Hugh I, claimed Jerusalem after the death of 
Yolande of Brienne, and her third husband, Ralph of Soissons, was 
fccepttd as bailiff of the kingdom in succession to John of Ibelin. 
(Archer's Crttsades, p. 384.) 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 315 

The last year of the emperor's truce was the last of 
Christian peace and prosperity in Syria. 

The masterful settlement made by Frederic had 
given rest for a while ; but the times were full of trouble. 
The young King of England was weak and incapable, 
the younger King (Louis IX) of France was hardly yet 
established on his throne, where his mother's regency 
was resented by intriguing barons. In Constantinople 
the Courtneys successors of Baldwin of Flanders were 
growing weaker, and the Greek and Bulgarian rebels 
were under the walls. The Pope and the Emperor 
quarrelled again as to Sardinia ; and Frederic was once 
more excommunicated, and marched on Rome, while 
Italy was rent by civil war. The Tartars were pushing 
west towards Russia, and Melek el Kamil, the wise 
Egyptian sultan, died. So in January, 1240 A.D., the 
truce expired in a troublous time. 

The Christians forthwith began to build the walls 
of Jerusalem, but David, the Emir of Kerak, fell upon 
them, and destroyed even the Tower of David, which 
Melek el Adel had left standing. New Crusaders set 
out to their aid, under Thibaut V, Count of Champagne, 
and King of Navarre the troubadour. He was forbidden 
t) go by both Pope and Emperor, but embarked at 
Marseilles, and found the princes of Damascus, Aleppo, 
and Hamath fighting each other. The Duke of Brittany 
raided to Damascus in this seventh Crusade, seizing 
camels and oxen, horses, asses, and buffaloes. The 
Duke of Burgundy and the Count of Bar, though 
mutually jealous, marched on Gaza before King 

Y 2 



316 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Thibaut, but there endured a defeat which led to the 
loss of all that Frederic's treaty had gained, and of the 
possessions in Galilee which had just been reconfirmed 
by a treaty with Saleh I mad ed Din, Sultan of 
Damascus.* This reverse took place in consequence of 
the ill discipline of the army. The Count of Bar was 
taken prisoner to Egypt, and with him Amaury de 
Montfort, and many other leaders. King Thibaut was 
too late to help them, and retired on Ascalori and Acre. 
The Templars made a separate treaty with Damascus, 
and the Hospitallers with Egypt. Richard of Cornwall 
following Thibaut to the East in despite of the pope- 
found none of the Franks ready to begin the war again. 
Amid these troubles Gregory IX died, in 1241 A.D., as 
did his successor Celestin IV, only fifteen days after 
he was elected. Innocent IV acceded in 1243. 

The races which had fought so long for Palestine 
seemed all to be exhausted half a century after Saladin's 
death. Christians and Turks alike were divided among 
themselves, and the future lay with the Tartars and the 
Egyptians. The Kharezmians a wild Turkic people east 
of the Caspian Sea had conquered Persia under Sultan 
Muhammad in 1218, but after his defeat by Genghiz 
Khan were pressed westwards by the Tartar advance 
from Central Asia, and had crossed the Volga in 1236, 
invading Poland, defeating the Teutonic Order, and 
rousing terror even in England. The litany of the 
Latin Church now contained a new petition " From the 
fury of the Tartars, good Lord deliver us ! " As early 

* Makrizi, see Bohn's Chronicles of Crusadts, p. 536. 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 317 

as 1228 A.D. the Sultan of Damascus had called them to 
help him ; and in 1243 the Sultan of Egypt sought 
their alliance against Damascus. They came in hordes 
through Asia Minor and Syria, pillaging all the lands. 
Twenty thousand horsemen of this great vanguard of 
the coming Tartars ravaged the county of Tripoli, and 
overflowed Galilee terrible they were to Moslem and 
Christian alike. Like the Scythians in King Josiah's 
time, " their quiver was an open sepulchre." " The lion 
is come from his thicket, and the waster of nations is on 
his way : he is gone forth from his place to make thy 
land desolate : thy cities shall be laid waste without 
inhabitant." For they came from the ancient Scythian 
home of Gog and Magog, and knew of neither Christ 
nor Muhammad. The Christians fled from Jerusalem, 
as they came, with Templars and Hospitallers ; but they 
rang the bells and lured them back. Seven thousand 
Christians returned, and all were massacred, even the 
sick and aged were murdered. The tombs of Godfrey 
and his successors were broken up for spoil. The 
Sepulchre was violated and robbed. The holy relics 
were burnt or broken in pieces. 

This inroad of barbarians for a moment united Chris- 
tendom and Islam in a common cause.* The Templars 
called on Melek el Mansur, Emir of Emesa, to help 
them ; and the united army marched on Ascalon. But 
the Kharezmians were at Gaza, where the Egyptians 
joined them, and on the i/th of October, 1244, a disaster 

* Regesta, Nos. 1119, 1123, 1125, 1127-8, 1133. 



318 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

fell upon the Christians of Syria greater than even 
Thibaut's defeat, and on the same fatal field. They 
arrayed the battle with the Knights Hospitallers on 
the left, under Walter of Brienne, Count of Jaffa, and 
nephew of the King of Jerusalem. In the centre were 
the Templars, with the Patriarch bearing the Holy 
Cross : on the right were the Moslems under Melek el 
Mansur : all the barons of Syria were with the Cross. 
For two days the battle was furiously waged, but at 
length the Moslems were driven back, and thirty 
thousand of the allies are said to have fallen. Only the 
Patriarch and the Prince of Tyre escaped, with thirty- 
three Templars, twenty-six Hospitallers, and three 
Teutonic knights. The Egyptians overran Palestine, 
occupying Jerusalem and Tiberias : the Kharez- 
mian hordes pillaged the Jordan valley and the 
Ascalon plains, and tied Walter of Brienne to a cross 
before the walls of Jaffa ; but the garrison refused 
even then to yield, and Walter was sent to Cairo 
where so many Christian and Moslem prisoners now 
were taken and there he was killed by the mob in the 
streets. 

The Kharezmians were next induced to attack Damas- 
cus, which submitted ; but here they quarrelled with the 
Egyptians. The Moslem forces of Aleppo and Damas- 
cus joined the latter, and after two pitched battles the 
Kharezmians fled, and became dispersed in Asia Minor. 
Thus in 1247 A.D. the condition of Syria remained not 
very different from that which Richard and Saladin 
established. The plains from Jaffa northwards were 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 319 

still held by Christians, and the mountains and lands 
beyond the Jordan were possessed by Egyptian 
Moslems ; but this position resulted not from treaty but 
from conquest, and the Christians had lost their most 
experienced defenders, in the destruction of the Military 
Orders. Nejm ed Din of Egypt held the Holy City ; and 
a yet more terrible foe was to appear in Bibars. The 
history of the forty-four years that followed, down to 
the loss of Acre, is one of constant misfortune, and 
steadily decreasing territory. 

Before considering this last half century of Latin 
occupation of Syria, we may turn for a moment to 
describe the social conditions of the better period, when 
Frederic II had established a ten years' peace, and when 
the trade of the East was not yet ruined by the Tartar 
outbreak. In many respects the Prankish society 
differed much, in the thirteenth century, from that 
described in the twelfth, before the kingdom was lost at 
Hattin. The main new features were the growth of 
literature and knowledge, among both Christians and 
Moslems, which seemed at one time destined to lead to 
a better understanding between them ; the development 
of trade by the Italian cities ; and the increasing power 
of the Military Orders. 

Respecting literature we have seen that the followers 
of Godfrey tore the Korans in pieces, and burned the 
library of Tripoli, but that, in Saladin's times, the Frank 
nobles had learned Arabic, and had studied Arab books. 
In 1215 A.D. an Archbishop of Toledo even encouraged 
the translation of the Koran into Latin, and the Moslem 



320 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

beliefs began to be well understood.* But when tlrs 
learn irg led Frederic II to seek peace with Egypt the 
popes began to set their veto on the study of the Arabic 
tongue, and on the religious and philosophic writings 
of the Arabs. In Europe the knowledge gained in 
Syria was thus forbidden for centuries after it was first 
attained. 

But it was not only Arab literature that attracted the 
Latins. The learning of the Jacobites was indeed the 
source of Arab culture.f When the great school of 
Edessa was broken up by the Nestorian dispute, its 
disciples gathered not only in Nisibis, but also in Tripoli. 
They were students of Aristotle and Plato, and Abu el 
Faraj otherwise called Gregory bar Hebraeus was a 
Syrian Jacobite whose works and studies in Tripoli 
(between 1246 and 1259 A.D.) covered many scientific 
subjects and remain in extant manuscripts. His philo- 
sophic writings included : first, analectics, dialectics, 
rhetoric, and sophistry ; secondly, cosmography, natural 
history, and psychology ; and, thirdly, metaphysics. 
They were founded on Aristotle, and were the basis of 
much that became known later in Europe, when St. 
Louis taking example by what he saw in Palestine 
began to encourage the collection of books in libraries, 
and the Benedictines began to learn the wisdom of the 
East. In other Syrian manuscripts of the same age are 
found treatises on religion and religious history the 

* See Sir John Maundeville in 1322 A.D., Bohn's Early Travels in 
Palestine, p. 200. An earlier Latin translation dates 1 143. 

t Rey, Colonies Franqucs, pp. 166-171. Bar Hebneus was a Jew by- 
race, and born at Malatiya in Aimenia. He became Bishop of Aleppo. 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 321 

knowledge of God, the Creation, the nature of man, the 
elements composing the world, the phenomena of the 
atmosphere, the nature of birds, beasts, fishes, and 
reptiles all no doubt very primitive in scope and in 
scientific character, yet representing that spirit of 
enquiry which arose with the great Greek genius whose 
mind still influences mankind, and which led Pliny to 
examine fossils, and to explain the true form of the 
world. In 1272 A.D. Bar Hebraeus was still lecturing 
on Euclid and the Almagest of Ptolemy, and in addition 
he compiled chronicles of the highest value for the 
history of his time. 

Such knowledge spread among the seigneurs rather 
than the clergy ; and whereas in the earlier age the 
authors of chronicles and pilgrim diaries are monks or 
priests, in the thirteenth century some of the most 
important memoirs and chronicles are due to nobles 
and knights. We have yet to consider the charming 
pages of Joynville, whose successors were the gouty old 
knight Sir John Maundeville,* and the Burgundian 
Bertrandon de la Brocquiere. The account of the 
Tartars, by the good monk Rubruquis, is not more 
valuable than the travels of the layman Marco Polo. 
Villeharduin, who describes the conquest of Constanti- 
nople which he witnessed, was Marshal of Champagne, 
and became Marshal of Roumania. The increasing 
culture of laymen is one of the features of the thirteenth 
century ; but it must not be forgotten that Vincent of 

* Sir John Maundeville's work no doubt is largely based on Pliny, 
Marco Polo, and other authors for regions which he had not visited, but 
the account of Palestine appears to be original. 



322 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Beauvais, the Dominican, who was librarian to St. Louis 
and engaged in educating this king's children, was 
equally distinguished in France in the same age. His 
Speculum Majus appeared about 1250 A.D., and he 
attempted to bring together all the science of the times, 
treating of natural history, of arts, and of general history 
in all ages. It was on his return from Syria that St. 
Louis encouraged similar learned writers. 

One of the great difficulties encountered by such 
enquiry lay in the multiplicity of alphabets and of 
languages to be learned. In addition to the Gothic 
capitals of monuments and the Gothic small text, the 
Greek uncials and minuscules were learned by men like 
William of Tyre. Syriac was written in the rounded 
Estrangelo and in the later Serta character, The 
Nestorian character and dialect, though connected, 
were not the same as the Syriac. The old Syrian 
script known as Kufic, and used near Damascus before 
the Moslem conquest, was unintelligible to the Crusaders 
in the time of William of Tyre, but the Latins became 
acquainted later with the flowing Neskhi writing of 
Saladin's age closely resembling the modern Arabic 
script. The Armenian and Georgian alphabets en- 
shrined little but legends of saints and historical 
romance, but it became necessary later to understand 
the Uigur alphabet of the Mongols, in which letters sent 
from Mangu Khan to the Pope were written. The 
crabbed forms of later Jewish alphabets were perhaps 
known only to Jews, but names of Jewish pilgrims are 
written on the walls of Crusaders' churches like that 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 323 

of St. Samuel by travellers who ventured into the 
Latin Kingdom to visit the sacred cities of Jerusalem, 
Hebron, Tiberias, and Safed, and to pray at the tombs 
of prophets and rabbis ; while the Samaritans used the 
Arabic letters in addition to their own most ancient 
alphabet. 

Literature flourished among Moslems as well as 
among Christians. The geography of Edrisi was pub- 
lished at the court of Roger II of Sicily in 1154, and 
though he only visited Asia Minor he tells us much of 
Palestine. Ibn Jobeir was born in Spain in 1 145 A.D., 
and at the age of forty travelled in Egypt and Arabia, 
and by Mosul and Damascus to Acre. Yakut, the 
Greek slave, educated at Baghdad, travelled in Persia 
and Mesopotamia, and settled in Aleppo, dying in 1229 
A.D. He had completed a dictionary of geography 
(four years earlier) covering four thousand octavo pages.* 
In 1177 A.D. was born at Tyre Reshed ed Din, who 
studied the botany of Southern Syria and the Lebanon. 
Ibn Beithar, a Spanish Moslem, visited Antioch and 
Egypt in 1217 A.D., and settled under Melek el Kamil 
at Damascus : he also was busy with the flora of 
the Lebanon. Kaswini, the Arab Pliny, was Kadi of 
Hillah, near Babylon, when he died in 1281 A.D. His 
great work is divided into three parts : the first on 
minerals, the second on botany, the third on zoology, 
and his great authority was Aristotle.f His zoology 
is faulty, but the spirit rather than the actual result 

* Guy le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, pp. 7-9. 
+ Rey, Colonies fa-cinques, p. 185. 



324 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

must be considered in estimating the culture of the 
age. 

The commerce of the thirteenth century followed the 
same great routes by the Caspian, by Baghdad, and 
through Egypt, already mentioned as explored much 
earlier by Italians, Greeks, and Jews, by Arabs, Indians, 
and Chinese. It must also be considered under the two 
heads of Christian and Moslem trade. The trade of 
Venice reached its height about 1200 A.D., but was 
interrupted by Tartar disturbances. The Genoese trade 
continued by the northern route till the fifteenth cen- 
tury ; but the Pisan and Venetian gradually shifted to 
Egypt and reached India by the Red Sea. Of the 
Amalfi merchants we hear nothing in the thirteenth 
century, but the Marseilles'* traders continued in Pales- 
tine down to 1260 A.D. at least: they aided Conrad of 
Montferrat to defend Tyre against Saladin, and helped 
in 1198 A.u. at Jaffa. They obtained free trade at 
Beirut, and possessions in Acre, and full rights in 
Cyprus and at Tyre, and they established a treaty with 
Venice in 1259 A.D. 

The conquest of Constantinople and of the Greek 
islands gave the Venetians a more commanding position 
than was held by either their Genoese or their Pisan 
rivals ; and some forty extant documents relate to their 
Syrian possessions in the thirteenth century, t Conrad 
of Montferrat confirmed their older rights. Leo II of 
Armenia granted them free trade in his kingdom. 

* ftegesia, Nos. 666, 697, 747, 855, 889, 965, 1014, 1045, 1052, 1071, 
1109, 1283, 1297. 
t Regesta, between No. 679 and No. 1481. 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 325 

Melek el Adel promised them protection in Egypt, and 
Guy of Gebal gave them free trade, though Pope 
Honorius III took away their church at Tyre when 
they were excommunicated in 1216 A.D. They made 
treaties with Aleppo and with other Turkish cities, and 
renewed their Egyptian alliance with Kelaun in 1288 
A.D., shortly before the fall of Acre. The papal ban 
thus only served to throw them more and more into 
intercourse with Moslems. They owned no less than 
eighty villages in the plains of Tyre, mostly purchased 
in the thirteenth century, and of these Marsilius Geor- 
gius, bailly of Syria, made a list in 1243 A.D.,* in which 
he speaks of the sugar cultivation, and names various 
Moslem rustics as their tenants. 

The Genoese possessions are described in some fifty 
extant documents! after the battle of Hattin. They 
retained their privileges in Antioch and Tyre (where 
they helped against Saladin) and those of the " Gold 
Letters " of Jerusalem. Leo II of Armenia gave them 
free trade in the Gulf of Aiyas and at Tarsus, and other 
agreements were made in Cyprus, and at Beirut, Haifa, 
and Acre. There were Genoese residents in Damascus ; 
and in 1290 A.D. they made a treaty with Kelaun in 
Egypt. Henry III of England wrote to a Genoese 
merchant of Damascus, in 1225 A.D, to provide scarlet 
and other gifts on his account for the Sultan. 

The Pisans are found in the same sea coast cities 
according to some forty other deeds, and documents, 

* Regesta, No. 1114. 

t Ditto, between Nos. 685 and 1503. 



326 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

after the battle of Hattin.* As early as 1208 A.D. they 
were in treaty with Egypt, though, like the other cities, 
not loth to break these alliances in favour of Crusaders 
attacking the Delta. They aided to recover Jaffa from 
Saladin, and were employed by King Guy at the great 
siege of Acre in 1189 A.D. Celestin III confirmed their 
rights in 1193, and they had quarters in Tyre and 
Antioch, and free trade in the Latin Kingdom, in 
Cyprus, and at Batrun. Melek el Kamil received 
their consul, and granted a funduk in Alexandria. 
Frederic II restored their lost properties, for good 
service rendered, and granted freedoms in Jerusalem, 
Acre, and Tyre ; but their quarrels with the Genoese 
were of constant recurrence. 

The trading ships which were built in Italian ports, 
for the transport of troops, pilgrims, and merchandise, 
probably resembled those which Felix Fabri describes 
in detail in the fifteenth century.f The galley in which 
he sailed was Venetian, with sixty benches, each for three 
rowers, to whom an archer was added in the ships of war. 
Its length was about one hundred and eighty feet, and 
its breadth forty-two feet at the mast. The truck of the 
mast was over ninety feet above the water. The ship 
had a beak for ramming other vessels, and a foresail. 
The rudder (which in Oriental ships was replaced by two 
long sweeps at the stern) was, in the Venetian galleys, 
single as now. The vessel, though broadly built, was 
swift, and the whole distance from Venice to Acre could 

* Regesta, between Nos. 662 and 1518. 

t Felix Fabri, Vol. I, Part I, pp. 125-163, English translation. 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 327 

be covered in about a fortnight with fair weather. In 
the high stern of the galley the " castle " was built in 
three storeys, the steersman and the compass being 
above the captain's cabin in the central storey, and the 
treasury, and cabin for " noble ladies," below, reached 
only by a hatchway.* Near the poop the boats were 
hung, with companion ladders, and on the poop the flag 
was hoisted. The kitchen was in this part, with a 
cellar beneath, and a stable for live stock beside it. 
The ship was provided with mangonels for throwing 
stones. The mast had a square sail, and a cage above 
for the outlook. Various sails were provided for change 
of weather. The deck round the mast was called the 
" market place " of the galley, being the only place of 
meeting for passengers and traders. The merchandise 
was stored along the sides, and over the deck was a 
gangway, from stem to stern, for the officers who 
ordered the rowers, who were galley slaves, chained to 
their benches, but allowed to go on shore at the ports 
to trade for themselves. The cabin in the body of the 
ship was reached by a hatchway under the benches : it 
ran from the castle to the prow, and was used both for 
merchandise and for travellers ; but was only lighted 
from the deck. The berths touching each other were 
arrayed with the head to the ship's sides; and the 
passengers' chests were placed at their feet, by the central 
gangway. The hold beneath the cabin contained the 
ballast of sand, in which the passengers buried their 

* The total number on board would not have exceeded four hundred 
persons. 



328 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

bottles of wine, and other provisions, for coolness as in 
the Greek ships of the time of Justinian. The well for 
the bilge water appears to have given great annoyance 
to the land's-men in the berths, as did the smell of pitch 
on timbers and sheets. The altar was by the mast, and 
the pilgrims stood there singing hymns as the ship left 
port, and made processions round the mast in other 
cases. The captains were men of wealth and station ; 
and pilots, acquainted with the whole course, were 
carried. Charts were in use, and a second compass by 
the mast. 

The lot of the galley slave was a hard one : they 
were divided into three classes, and included Greeks, 
Albanians, Illyrians, and Slavs, with a few Turks and 
Saracen captives. They were incited to their hard 
labour with " shouts, blows, and curses." They were 
wretchedly fed, and slept on their benches, unprotected 
from weather. When not pulling they gambled with 
dice and blasphemed. They were terrible thieves, and 
sometimes dangerous mutineers ; but each and all had 
some small venture under his bench, for harbour trade ; 
and they could speak Turkish and Greek, as well as 
Italian, enough for such a purpose. The sailors and 
cabin boys belonged to a better class of freemen : there 
were also trumpeters, barbers, doctors, surgeons, and 
clerks on board. The administration of justice was 
strict, but the punishments were not severe. In cases 
where horses and mules were carried they stood on 
deck above the cabin, to the discomfort of those who 
could not sleep for their stamping. The food was 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 329 



coarse, and vermin abounded ; while the presence of a 
few violent characters among the passengers destroyed 
all hope of rest, in the long undivided and dark cabin, 
where they were closely packed : while the bilge water 
was pumped out from its midst. The petty thefts of the 
rowers, and the rolling up of beds each morning, were 
other troubles of these unhappy passengers. Nor were 
they able to sleep on shore, in the islands visited, for the 
inns were of evil repute, and the lives of strangers often 
in danger. The hardships encountered during storms, 
when the waves dashed over the rowers, and flooded the 
cabin, must often have made the pilgrims prefer even 
the toils and dangers of the long land journey to the 
East. 

Turning next to the native trade of Syria which 
enriched the Italians, it is to be noted that the Arab 
trade with India, from Alexandria and Aden, already 
brought Chinese products to the West in the sixth century 
A.D.,* having been established by the Romans four 
hundred years earlier, when silk first became known in 
Italy. In the eighth century the Arabs visited Canton,t 
and Chinese fleets then reached Aden and the Persian 
Gulf, bringing silk and porcelain and other merchandise. 
In the ninth century Ibn Khordadbeh had described 
the double monsoon of the Indian Ocean, of which 
Hippalus had taken advantage under Augustus. In the 

* Cosmas, quoted by Priault, India and Rome, pp. 129-219; 
Antoninus, p. 31, English translation. 

t Rey, Colonies Franques, pp. 193-234. The Moslems are noticed in 
China under the Tang dynasty within a century of the He^irah. 
(Williams, Middle Kingdom, Vol. II, p. 285.) 



330 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM, 

twelfth and thirteenth centuries this Arab trade flourished, 
as it had done under the great khalifs, and the Chinese 
were met at Sumatra. Chinese snuff bottles, with 
quotations from poets who wrote in the " Flowery 
Kingdom " between the eighth and thirteenth centuries, 
have been found in Egypt and in Cyprus.* In 1137 
rich gifts of Chinese silks were made to the Kaaba at 
Mecca, and the Arabs appear to have been still visiting 
China. 

Rakkah on the Euphrates was the point of junction 

of the caravans from east and west the first coming 

from Mosul, the latter from Iconium in Asia Minor by 

Edessa, or from Aleppo, Antioch, and Aiyas. The line 

from Rakkah to Damascus lay through the Jewish 

settlement at Palmyra. The Italian treaties with the 

Moslems placed all the products of this commerce in 

Italian hands for transport to Europe ; but it passed 

through many Jewish trading settlements further east 

as already explained before reaching the Euphrates 

marts. In 1184 Ibn Jobeir speaks of the rich merchants 

of Damascus, who sent caravans to the Latin Kingdom. 

At Acre there were merchants of Mosul established as 

vassals of the Templars. In 1268 an agreement was 

made between these Mosul traders and the Genoesef at 

Acre, concerning a dispute in which an Italian ship had 

been seized. The trade between Aleppo and Antioch 

existed before the twelfth century, and Greek merchants 

were thus in relation with Moslems. In the Edessa 

* Williams, Middle Kingdom, Vol. II, p. 27. 
f Regesta, Nos. 1362, 1381. 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 331 

Principality the Jacobite Syrians monopolised the trade ; 
and from the Euphrates fords the caravan routes extended 
to Tarsus and Iconium ; and slaves were brought to 
Aiyas from Georgia, Russia, and Armenia, with spices, 
cloth, and silk embroidered with gold as described by 
Marco Polo in the thirteenth century. The pilgrims to 
Mecca, allowed by their Prophet to trade during their 
journey, communicated between Asia Minor, Damascus, 
and the western ports of Arabia, while Damascus was 
also in communication with Suez and Akabah, where 
ships from Yemen were met. Ibn Batuta describes 
Chinese junks* by that name (in the fourteenth century) 
as coming to Arabia. The Egyptian caravans came 
through the Sinaitic desert to Kerak, or by Gaza and 
Hebron to meet at Damascus. 

The Arab traders, settled in Syria itself, were the 
intermediaries of this foreign commerce, with whom 
the Franks communicated. In their stores were found 
carpets of Baghdad and Persia, ivory and perfumes, 
sandal wood, musk, and aloes, civet and spices, and 
glass from the Irak regions. Chinese porcelain is 
mentioned in the Assizes of Jerusalem as coming 
from " the Paynims " ; and Ibn Batuta says it was much 
prized in Syria as early as the tenth century. It con- 
tinued to be brought to Damascus in- the fourteenth 
century. Pearls from the Persian Gulf were also bought 
by the Franks ; and precious vases of painted marble 
from Mecca, and enamelled pottery, with damascined 
copper, and Damascus blades. The apothecaries dealt 

* Rey, Colonies Pratiques, p. 203. 

Z 2 



332 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

in opium, rhubarb, tamarind, gums, cantharides, and 
cardamoms, in myrrh and balm, in attar of roses, 
orpiment, scammony, and senna. There were electuaries 
of citrons, and sherbets and syrups in their shops, 
aromatic vinegar and myro-balsamum. The matahassep 
inspected the wares of the grocers, and the sherbets, so 
that according to the Assizes nothing "that was not 
good might be sold," and perhaps to prevent the sale of 
poisons. 

Another important trade with Siberia brought various 
furs to Syria and Europe. Boats from the Volga came 
to Derbend on the Caspian, with skins of red and white 
foxes. The furriers had a street in Jerusalem,* and sold 
skins 'of the ermine, marten, otter, beaver, wild cat, and 
squirrel. Minever was the skin of the Siberian squirrel, 
brought to the port of Aiyas across Armenia. Ibn 
Batuta, Marco Polo, and Abu el Feda, speak of the fur 
trade with the invisible inhabitants of the " Land of 
Darkness " in the high latitudes of Siberia ; and legends 
of its long arctic nights go back to the time of the 
Pseudo-Callisthenes.f Sir John Maundeville repeats 
three stories, relating how the voices of men, the neigh- 
ing of horses, and the crowing of cocks, might be heard 
where nothing could be seen in the winter darkness ; 
and in these Mongolian deserts the sands were said to 
lap like the waves of the sea, in a region still terrible for 
its dust storms. 



* William of Tyre : Rey, Colonies Pratiques, p. 209. 
t Yule's Marco Polo, II, p. 415 ; Sir John Maundeville in Bohn's Early 
Travels, p. 258. 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 333 

Among the Syrian products were feathers of the 
ostrich from the eastern deserts, and salt from the Dead 
Sea, and the alkali plant from the plain to its north. 
The helmets were adorned also at times with plumes 
of peacock feathers white, or green with purple eyes. 

The Syrian industries were highly important, because 
in many instances they gave the models of later 
European art. When the Arabs conquered Persia, in- 
the seventh century A.D., they found in existence an art: 
which, though partly of Greek or Byzantine origin, was 
mainly based on the old civilisation of Babylon and 
Assyria. Thus, for instance, the cloisonne enamels, which 
were famous in later times in Damascus and Persia, trace 
back to a Persian or Assyrian art, of which a specimen- 
exists in the British Museum. The Arab khalifs 
encouraged such art, and it spread with Islam to Egypt, 
Spain, and Syria. The faience work with which the 
Dome of the Rock is adorned was of Persian origin, and' 
traced back to the wonderful coloured tiles of Susa,. 
dating from 400 B.C. This art began to show its influ- 
ence on the ceramic work of France even in the twelfth 
century, when Arabic letters were imitated on the 
enamelled tiles of St. Antonin. 

In Antioch, Hebron, Tripoli, Damascus, and Acre, 
glass was made in the twelfth century.* It was a very 
early discovery, either in Syria itself or in Egypt. 
Lamps, cups, bowls, and bottles were manufactured of 
gilded and enamelled glass, at some of the towns noted, 
even in the eleventh century ; and heraldic animals 
* William of Tyre, XIII, 3. 



334 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

lions, eagles, and martichores were represented in the 
ornament. The Venetian glass took its origin in the 
imitation of this Syrian art ; and the materials were 
brought from Syria. The Damascus inlaid metal work 
still an extant industry was also imported to Europe, 
and became the source whence the idea of copper plate 
printing arose. The gold and silver smiths of Syria 
wrought after Byzantine models, and their work found 
its way to churches such as that of Namur, where a cross 
made at Acre still exists, adorned with cloisonne work, 
representing figures of St. Mark, St. John, St. Matthew, 
St. Peter, St. Paul, and the angel Gabriel, with Greek- 
texts in red enamel, and turquoises, rubies, and other 
stones.* 

Syria had been the first country in which silk was spun 
in Justinian's time ; and it continued to be manufactured 
at Damascus in the twelfth century,t as well as at Tyre, 
Tripoli, Antioch, and Tarsus, with taffeta, satin, and 
scndal. In 1283 there were at least four thousand 
workers in silk and cloth in Tripoli alone. The inven- 
tories of St. Paul's in London, and of the Cathedral of 
Canterbury, include notices of silk vestments from 
Antioch, of embroidered work from Tarsus, and sendals 
from Tripoli. In Syria and Cyprus cotton was also 
made into cloth and buckram a material noticed in 
the Assizes. Camelots or camel-hair stuffs were also 
highly prized in the -thirteenth century such as Joyn- 
ville bought at Tortosa ; and tyretaine or tartan took its 

* Rey, Colonies Franquet, p. 232. 
+ Ditto, p. 214. 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 335 

name from Tyre. Carpets used by Franks and natives 
alike* came from Asia Minor, Baghdad, and Persia. 
Soap was made as now from olive oil and alkali. Salt 
was manufactured in the salt pans such as those of 
the Tour des Salines, which still remain on the shore 
close to the Crocodile river. Iron .was also mined in 
the Lebanon near Beirut, while Asia Minor supplied 
other metals in abundance. Such a review of Oriental 
trade not only shews us the prosperity which grew out 
of the conquest of Syria, but it also uenes to explain 
the rapid growth of art and commerce in Europe, which 
followed that conquest. 

The defence of the country, and the maintenance of 
the Italian trade, became the duty of the great Military 
Orders. The Templars were thought to aim at the 
possession of the whole country as the property of their 
Order, but they found rivals, with whom they even 
sometimes actually fought, in the Knights Hospitallers ; 
while through the influence of Frederic II the Teutonic 
Order became important in the thirteenth century, and 
took his side against the Pope in the great quarrel of his 
reign. The Templars in this age had eighteen fortresses, 
of which the most important were Tortosa in the north, 
and Chateau Pelerin built under Carmel in 1218 A.D. 
They were especially strong in the county of Tripoli 
where Chateau Blanc north of the capital was their 
great castle. They had fourteen commanders in Syria 
besides those in Cyprus and Armenia : they acted not 
only as guards and guides to pilgrims, but also as 
* William of Tyre, V, 23. 



336 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

bankers : though, according to Joynville, it was not 
always easy to recover money deposited with them. 
They did not scruple to make alliances, not only with 
schismatic Christians, but even with Moslem princes. 
They took the side of Bibars in 1274 A.D. against the 
King of Cyprus, and interceded with Kelaun in 1282 for 
the King of Armenia, concluding a ten years' truce with 
that Sultan of Egypt. Some forty extant documents 
relate to their history and possessions in Syria, after the 
battle of Hattin down to the fall of Acre.* In 1195 
they obtained property near Nicosia in Cyprus, from 
Amaury II ; and the next year were warned by the 
Pope to keep the peace with the prior of the Holy 
Sepulchre. Three years later they were excommunicated 
by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, for retaining certain 
funds, but Innocent III settled the quarrel. Their 
adventures in Armenia have been already noticed : the 
Pope took their part against Leo II, the Armenian king, 
who accused them of siding with the Sultan of Aleppo 
against his cause. 

The Order spread also along the shores of Asia 
Minor,f where the Pope confirmed their holding of the 
port of Satalia. In 1216 Frederic II recognised their 
right to build ships at Marseilles, and to bring pilgrims 
from Spain and other countries. In 1228 the Master 
swore obedience to the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Im- 
mediately after the third Crusade a great quarrel with 
the Hospital had arisen about lands near Margat. At 

* Regesta, between No. 676 and No. 1447. 
t Ditto, No. 815. 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 337 

this time the Templars had nine thousand manors, and 
the Hospitallers nineteen thousand (including European 
possessions)* : the boundaries of their lands near Mar- 
gat were not finally fixed till about 1243 A.D.,f the 
year of the Kharezmian invasion, when peace was a 
vital necessity between the Orders. Yet in 1262 they 
had to settle another dispute as to villages in the plains 
east of Acre.J 

The more popular Order of the Knights of St. John 
or Hospitallers established their principal seat at 
Krak des Chevaliers north-east of Tripoli, where the 
Grand Master abode after the battle of Hattin. About 
one hundred and twenty contemporary documents re- 
late their history during this later period. Among 
their important castles were Margat north of Tortosa, 
Chateau Rouge in the Sharon plain, Belvoir south-west 
of the Sea of Galilee which long resisted Saladin, 
and Gibelin, now Beit Jibrin, east of Ascalon. They 
owned in all one hundred and eighty-two villages in 

* The English possessions of the Templars (see Archer's Crusades, 
p. 180) included the old Temple outside Holborn Bars, whence they 
removed in 1185 to the Temple on the Thames. Hugh de Payen had 
been received by Heniy I in Normandy in 1128, and Stephen gave 
Temple Cressing in Essex to the Order about 1150. Queen Matilda gave 
them Temple Cowley, near Oxford. Henry II gave them Waterford and 
Wexford, and John gave Lundy Island. The chief English house of the 
Hospitallers at Clerkenwell was founded by Jordan Briset in mo. 
Stephen gave them Little Maplestead in Essex, Shandon in Herts, and 
Shengay in Cambridgeshire. The small English Order of St. Thomas of 
Acre (Stubb's Lectures on Mediceval History, pp. 182-5, quoted by Archer, 
Crusades, p. 183) was founded by William, chaplain of Ralph de Dicelo 
at -Acre, in honour of Thomas a Becket. They were attached to the 
Templars, and had a red and white cross. They had a Hospital in Acre, 
and survived to the fourteenth century in Cyprus. 

t Regesta, No. nil. 

t Ditto, No. 1318. 

Ditto, between No. 679 and.No. 1493. 



338 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Palestine, during their most prosperous time, lying in 
the shore plains or in the foot hills to the east: they 
had twelve commanders in Syria, besides those in 
Cyprus and Armenia, where they superseded the 
Templars. 

In 1199 A.D. the Order took charge of the Island of 
Marakieh and of the City of Horns, ceded by Boemund IV 
of Antioch, who was afraid of the Assassins living in 
this region,* whom the Hospitallers watched, but who 
became tributary later to the Templars. In the next 
year they made a special alliance with the Bishop of Acre, 
who allowed them to build a chapel in the city, and 
promised to do justice on their enemies, and to be at 
peace with themselvesf ; but in 1 203 A.D. we find them 
quarrelling in Cyprus with the Bishop of Nicosia.! The 
first Norman Emperor of Constantinople Baldwin 
attracted them in the following year by a grant of land 
in Neocastro, and their possessions steadily increased 
through places bequeathed by private owners in their 
wills, or through agreements with the Syrian princes 
and seigneurs in return for their services. The humble 
brethren became some of the proudest landowners in 
the country as time passed by. 

So in 1207 they obtained Kefr Lam and the Sail: 
Pans north of Caesarea, and a large grant further south, 
including villages in the low hills and the Castle of 
Plans west of Samaria|| where traces of their presence 

* Regesia, 759. 

t Ditto, 771. 

J Ditto, 790. 

Ditto, No. 796. 

|| Ditto, Nos. 818-819. 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 339 

still remain ; while in the Antioch Principality they 
obtained the town of Gabala, and soon after half of 
Chateau Blanc north of Tripoli.* Leo II of Armenia 
promised them half of Laranda near Iconium, if it 
should be conquered. Hugh I of Cyprus gave them 
lands near Paphos in 1210 A.D. ; and in the same year 
Prince Rupon, nephew of Leo II, joined the Order. 
Four years later they advanced 7,000 for the marriage 
of Leo II's daughter to King John of Brienne, and ob- 
tained further privileges in consequencef ; and in 1218 
others from Andrew of Hungary.^ In 1231 they ob- 
tained rents in Antioch from the products of fisheries, 
tanneries, and vineyards. In 1232 their disputes with 
the Templars were settled by the Archbishop of Naza- 
reth, and other prclates|| ; and three years later the two 
Orders agreed as to the water for mills on the River 
Belus near Acre. They settled other properties with 
the Teutonic Order soon after, and in 1243 received the 
custody of A scalon from Frederic Il.f In 1255 they 
obtained the fortress on Tabor,** and their possessions 
round Acre, and eastwards in Lower Galilee, steadily 
increased with the increase of Christian power before 
the battle of Gaza. In 1259 nineteen villages were 
handed over to them by the Archbishop of Nazareth, 
for an annual payment of about ^5,ooo.tt Sir Joseph 

* Regesta, 820 829, 843, 844, 845. 
t Ditto, Nos. 869, 870, 877, 878. 
J Ditto, No. 908. 

Ditto, No. 1032. 
|| Ditto, Nos. 1039, 1062. 
If Ditto, No. 1 1 12. 

* Ditto, No. 1230. 

ft Ditto, Nos. 1282, 1286. 



340 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

de Cancy, who wrote letters to Edward I of England, 
was the treasurer of the Order at this time in Palestine, 
being an English knight of a good Yorkshire family. 

As the final catastrophe approached, the sales to this 
Order became yet more important In 1261 A.D. they 
bought the town of Arsuf, near which they had long 
held lands in the plain of Sharon.* Villages near Tyre 
were granted in 1269 : and further properties in Cyprus.f 
In 1289, just before the final struggle, the Master of the 
Hospital wrote to summon his knights to the Holy Land 
after the losses suffered at Tripoli.t 

The Teutonic Order rose, as already said, out of the 
Hospital, and the date of its independent existence 
is uncertain. The German Hospital was, however, 
founded in Jerusalem in 1128 A.D. It was not till 
the thirteenth century that these knights became im- 
portant. In 1192 they were established at Acre, and 
they obtained lands in the Lebanon above Beirut, in 
Galilee, and in the Jordan Valley. Nearly a hundred 
villages belonged to them in later years. Upwards 
of ninety documents exist concerning their' affairs. 
Having lost the German Hospice in Jerusalem, the 
Teutonic knights began to build one near the east 
wall of Acre, which, during the siege, King Guy had 
promised to grant them, the Master of the Order of 
St. John granting lands near the townjj and Pope 
Celestin III promising them the Papal protection. 

* Regesta, Nos. 1302, 1313, 1371. 

t Ditto, Nos. 1366, 1370. 

% Ditto, No. 1493. 

-Ditto, between Nos. 696 and 1492. 

|| Ditto, Nos. 699, 700. 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 341 

In 1195 Henry of Champagne gave them equal rights 
with the two older Orders, and land near Jaffa ; and 
further properties were acquired not far from Acre, 
where they were accepted by the Templars as regu- 
larly established in 1198 A.D.* In the first year of 
the new century Boemund IV granted them free trade 
in Antioch. Lands in Upper Galilee and near Tripoli 
followed,! and half the spoil of Damietta was granted 
in i22O,t with a large purchase (confirmed by John of 
Brienne) of all the principal villages between Acre and 
Safed, which Frederic II again confirmed six years 
later. They had also a house in Tyre, and gardens 
at Sidon. Montfort, their great castle in the moun- 
tains north-east of Acre, was built in 1229, and in 
the same direction they held Chateau du Roi at 
Malia, built about 1220, and Chateau Jiddin, which 
retains its name, close by. Montfort stood on a high 
narrow ridge south of Wady el Kurn, and was the 
seat of the Grand Master, and the treasure house of 
the Order. The foundations of its walls and towers 
alone remain for the greater part of its extent. 

In 1240 a treaty with the Sultan of Damascus secured 
their wide lands in Galilee, which included Safed, and 
extended to Chorazin north of the Sea of Galilee.|| In 
1256 further villages were granted in the plains north of 
Acre, and others in the Sidon hills (called the Land of 



* Regesla, Nos. 720, 740. 

t Ditto.Nos. 772, 828, 839. 

J Ditto, Nos. 930, 933, 934, 940, 974, 978. 

Ditto, Nos. 954, 986. 

|| Ditto, Nos. 1026, 1104. 



342 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Shouf), by the Seigneur of Beirut and the Seigneur of 
Sidon* ; and five years later they rented a large number 
of villages in the same Land of Shouf for .105 yearly, 
paying a capital sum of ^"2,000 to Julian lord of Sidon. 
They, however, quarrelled with the Bishop of Hebron 
about property in Acre, and the dispute continued for 
twenty years till 1273 A.D., when the Order was excom- 
municated, but absolved by the Legate.f They, too, 
gathered in 1289 for the final defence of Acre. The 
Order had also its lands in Germany, and fought the 
Tartars in Poland. The Cartulary of their possessions 
is still preserved in Berlin. 

The final loss of Syria differently affected the for- 
tunes of these three great Orders. The Templars, 
who were immensely rich, and whose treachery was 
suspected on account of their known relations with 
Moslem princes, became the scapegoats of the great 
disaster, and were everywhere abolished as an Order 
about 1315 A.D. The Knights of St. John retained 
their good name for valour and benevolence in Cyprus, 
Rhodes, and Malta. The Teutonic Order, or Knights 
of St. George, had obtained the provinces of Livonia, 
Culm, and part of Prussia, and became a Lutheran 
Order at the Reformation in Germany. In an age 
when the power of popes was less, and the prejudices 
of the people less strong, the Templars whose policy 
was one of peaceful relations with the Moslems might 
perhaps have been recognised as the best friends of 

* Regesta, Nos. 1250, 1256, 1300-1. 
t Ditto, Nos. 1207, 1388, 1390. 



THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY FRANKS. 343 

Syria, and of European culture. They expiated at 
the stake the crime of tolerance. Their records are 
destroyed ; and only their beautiful churches remind 
us in Europe of the Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem, 
which was their original sanctuary. 



344 



CHAPTER X. 

ST. Louis. 

IN telling the story of the eighth Crusade (including 
that which led to the conquest of Byzantium) we rely 
on one of the most charming biographies ever penned. 
The perfect knight and Christian gentleman, who was 
hereafter to be known as St. Louis, was happy in the 
choice of a friend. For him the Sieur de Joynville 
wrote a loving memoir, and for him the good and brave 
monk Rubruquis journeyed to far-off Karakorum north 
of China. The results of his wars in Palestine were 
meagre, and in Egypt the cowardice and insubordina- 
tion of his dissolute soldiers brought disaster on the 
cause ; but the fair fame of King Louis IX of France 
was not dimmed by such misfortune, and to the end he 
held the hearts of honest and gentle friends. 

St. Louis was not yet thirty years of age when the 
news of the terrible inroad of the Kharezmians reached 
Europe. He had acceded as a boy of eleven, under 
the regency of his mother Blanche of Castile, who was 
hated, as a Spaniard and a woman of independent 
character, by the scheming barons of France. From 
her he learned never to lie or break his word, to be 
temperate in diet, to be chaste in life and speech, to 



ST. LOUIS. 345 

defend the poor against the rich, and the peasant against 
. the tyranny of priests : though his zeal unfortunately 
led to the burning of many heretics, for the good as 
he believed of their souls. He was modest in speech, 
hating argument, never contradicting, and humbly hold- 
ing that the faith must be simply accepted by lay- 
men who were without controversial knowledge. He 
was a king after the Pope's heart save in one particular, 
that he refused to confiscate the property of those 
excommunicated by French prelates. In the forest of 
Fontainebleau, and the woods of Vincennes, where he 
loved to hunt, St. Louis would seat himself under the 
green oaks in summer, to hear the woes of his meanest 
subjects, dressed in camlet or tyretaine, with black 
mantle of sendal, while his great lords were decked in 
cloth of gold and embroidered coats. In his boyhood 
a rebellion of the barons, headed by his father's uncle 
the Count of Boulogne brought many dangers on his 
mother and himself ; but the people loved him ; and as 
he passed with his guards from Mont Clery to Paris 
the crowds prayed aloud for his life and prosperity. 
Count Thibaut of Champagne aided him against 
Mauclerc, Count of Brittany, whom St. Louis forgave, 
after defeating him by such aid ; and the great friend of 
his life was John Sieur de Joynville, who was " not his 
subject," but rose to be high steward of Champagne. 
The country of his ally was wasted by the barons ; and 
in 1230 A.D. Henry III of England attempted to recover 
Gascony, but was defeated by St. Louis, who thus 
became inured to war at the early age of fourteen. 

2 A 



346 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Seven years later, when he attained his majority, he 
was safely established on the throne, and maintained 
unquestioned authority till death, becoming the arbiter 
of peace between other princes in Europe. Early in his 
reign St. Louis had received from John of Brienne a 
present of the Crown of Thorns, and from Baldwin of 
Constantinople a portion of the True Cross. For these 
precious relics the beautiful Sainte Chapelle was built 
in 1242-47 and consecrated in 1248 A.D., and it remains 
among the earliest and most unchanged of French- 
Norman churches. It was perhaps the possession of 
these relics which first turned the thoughts of the king 
to his wars in Palestine. 

In 1244 St. Louis lay dangerously ill in Paris, and 
was thought to be dead ; when the crisis was past he 
asked for a crucifix, and his mother's joy at his recovery 
was turned to grief seeingt hat he had taken the cross. 
In the following year an GEcumenical Council was sum- 
moned at Lyons, where the Pope had taken refuge, to 
consider the terrible news of the Kharezmian inroads, 
and of the dangers in Syria. There were two policies in 
the East that of the Pope and that of the Emperor 
the first seeking alliance with the Tartars, and pointing 
to the conquest of Egypt which threatened Syria from 
the south, the other aiming at alliance with the Sultan 
of Cairo against the new invaders from the North. 
These policies arose from the events of the previous 
years, and from the internecine hate of Guelph and 
Ghibeline, then rending Italy, where the great republics 
sided with the Pope against Frederic II, while St. Louis 



ST. LOUIS. 347 

vainly strove to make peace. The Pope refused at 
Lyons to allow help to be sent to the Emperor against 
the Tartars ; and sent brother John Piano Carpini to 
the great ruler, Mangu Khan,* whom he exhorted not 
to war against or persecute the Christians, but to be 
baptised. In 1246 Mangu Khan replied to Inno- 
cent IV who unable even to maintain himself in Rome 
thought to give orders to the ruler of nearly all Asia 
advising Christians to submit to his power ; and two 
years later other letters in Mongolian reached the Pope. 
Baidshu, the Tartar Prince of Persia, challenged the 
Holy Father to wage war if he chose, yet in the same 
year 1247 A.D the Constable of Armenia wrote to 
Henry II of Cyprus, to say the Tartars were Christians, 
a totally misleading statement which encouraged the 
papal party in a useless policy. In 1249 fictitious 
letters were circulated in Europe, according to which a 
Tartar prince, David descended from one of the Magi, 
Belthasar consoled the Emperor Frederic II for the 
Mongol victories, and promised aid, dating from the 
River Chobar and "the presence of the kings of Gog 
and Magog." The personal names and the bad geo- 
graphy alike attest the falsehood of such epistles, yet 
they were greedily received as confirming the popular 
delusion. 

Innocent IV also wrote in 1245 A.D. to Ismail, Sultan 
of Damascus, who merely acknowledged that he had 
received the monkish ambassadors. Melek es Saleh of 

* Regesta, Nos. 1134, 1138, 1140, 1142-3, 1147, 1150, 1155, Il6 3 
1 186. 

2 A 2 



348 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Egypt wrote to the Pope to say he had conquered the 
Tartars near Emesa, and to set forth the Moslem faith. 
This was on the occasion of the Kharezmian defeat, but 
the sultan was as little able to convert the Pope as the 
missionaries sent to him were able to convert the sultan. 
This sultan who was the son of Melek el Kamil 
understood the enmity of the Pope to Frederick II, for 
he wrote to Innocent IV again next year refusing to 
make any truce with him against the emperor his 
friend. He deplored the destruction of the Holy 
Sepulchre, and promised to punish the offending 
Kharezmians, to give up the keys of the church, and 
to rebuild and adorn it; but in 1248 he received news 
from Frederic of the hostile expedition setting out with 
St. Louis. The Emir of Kerak Melek en Nasir also 
refused the Pope's invitation to become a Christian, and 
set forth -his Moslem beliefs. In these various missions 
and diplomatic communications three years were wasted, 
and not till 1248 A.D. did St. Louis leave Europe, em- 
barking late, on the 23rd of August, at Aigues Mortes. 

Meanwhile the brothers of St. Louis Robert, Count 
of Artois ; Alfonse, Count of Poitou ; and Charles, 
Count of Anjou took the cross, with Hugh, Duke of 
Burgundy, William, Count of Flanders, and others, 
among whom was John de Joynville, then not more 
than twenty-five years of age. He hired a small ship, 
and brought twenty knights, after the celebration of 
the birthday of his little son at Easter, when he made 
amends to all of his vassals who had suffered any 
wrong. He tells us of the birthday feast, the songs and 



ST. LOUIS. 349 

drinking ; of the mortgage on his property ; of the pil- 
grimages he made to churches near his home, when he 
first received his scrip and pilgrim's staff, going bare- 
foot in his shirt to the holy places. 

" But as I was journeying," he says, " from Bliecourt 
to St. Urban, I was obliged to pass near to the castle of 
Joynville. I dared never to turn my eyes that way, for 
fear of feeling too great regret, and lest my courage 
should fail on leaving my two fine children, and my fair 
castle of Joynville which I loved with all my heart." 

Passing through the disturbed country where robbers 
lay in wait for merchants and pilgrims, Joynville em- 
barked at the Rock of Marseilles in August, and set out 
in a fair breeze, while monks and priests sang Veni 
Creator on the castle of the galley. He suffered much 
from sea-sickness, and had to bs supported in the pro- 
cession by which a fair wind was invoked off the coast 
of Barbary, of which he gives the following characteristic 
account : 

"A very discreet churchman called the dean of Mauru 
came forward and said ' Gentlemen, I never remember 
any distress in our parish . . . but that God and 
His Mother delivered us from it ... when a pro- 
cession had been made three times with devoutness on 
a Saturday.' Now this day was a Saturday, and we 
instantly began a procession round the masts of the 
ship. . . . Immediately afterwards we lost sight of 
the mountain, and arrived at Cyprus the third Saturday 
after we had made our procession." 

At Limasol, in Cyprus, St. Louis had already arrived 



350 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

on the 2 1st of September, where news came of 
Turkoman raids near Antioch ; and six hundred bow- 
men were sent on to Boemund's aid. Melek es Saleh 
was besieging Aleppo, and soon after returned ill to 
Egypt. The King of Armenia had made a truce with 
the Tartars, whose prince was reported to have been 
baptised. The Templars and Hospitallers advised 
peace with Egypt, but only roused indignation against 
themselves. The French army, given up to drink and 
luxury, began at once to suffer from the autumn fever of 
Cyprus, and no less than 250 knights died. In the 
winter the Count of Poitou set out, on ?th December, 
from Aigues Mortes, to join his brother ; and about this 
time Melek es Saleh died in Egypt. From England 
also came the Earls of Salisbury and Leicester, the 
former grandson of Rosamund the Fair having been 
deprived of his lands by Henry III, who, though only 
about forty, was too doubtful of his throne, and too 
indolent, to take the Cross. 

During this time, while stores were being collected in 
Cyprus, where gigantic piles of wine casks, and heaps of 
wheat and barley sprouting green, were raised to the 
amount of two years' rations, there came Tartar envoys 
to St. Louis offering alliance. An embassy was sent 
in return with presents, concerning which more must be 
said later. 

After Whit Sunday, 1249 A - D -> tne ^ eet f St. Louis 
set sail for Egypt, and reached Damietta in four days. 
A landing was effected in spite of the Egyptian army, 
and the oriflamme planted in Egypt. Rumours of the 



57: LOUIS. 3^1 

sultan's death discouraged his army, and Damietta was 
found to be deserted early in June.* The troubles that 
followed began with commissariat frauds, and exactions 
on the suttlers which discouraged them from feeding 
the army, the immorality of which was shocking to the 
king.f Towards the end of the year, after five months 
of skirmishing, the French army, delayed by the Nile 
floods, had only penetrated thirty miles inland, and was 
attacking Mansurah, which was defended by Bibars, 
commander of the memluk guards of the new Sultan 
El Muaddem.f The town was reached by damming a 
branch of the Nile : in the fighting that followed St. 
Louis was nearly captured, and his brother, the Count 
of Artois, was killed. , In the end of February, 1250, the 
sultan met the Christian army, which, on the iQth of 
December, had advanced as far as Ashmun, between the 
Damietta and Bolbitic branches of the Nile, twenty 
miles north of Cairo. The advance was badly planned, 
as the main body with the king was separated by the 
river from the Duke of Burgundy east of the Damietta 
branch. The forces were also suffering from famine and 
scurvy ; and on the 5th of April a retreat was ordered, 
which degenerated into a rout when the Turks fell on 
the rear of the army. The king was ill with dysentery : 
the sick, left on shore for transport by the galleys, were 
massacred ; and St. Louis, anxious to help them, was 
left behind by his cowardly soldiers, and captured. A 

* Regesta, No. 1180. 

t Joynville, in Bohn's Chronicles of the Crusades, p. 396. 
J He succeeded his father Melek es Saleh Eyub 23rd November, 1249, 
and reached Cairo on 24th February, 1250. 



352 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

truce followed, while the question of ransom was de- 
bated ; and thus the last Crusade against Egypt was 
frustrated, like all former attempts, by the climate, 
by the diseases due to heat, bad water, and bad food, by 
the intricate system of irrigation channels which inter- 
sected the country between the river mouths, and by the 
annual rise of the Nile. The advance from the sea has 
always been dangerous and difficult, in marching on 
Cairo, and the city only became vulnerable when, in the 
present century, the Suez Canal enabled an army to 
reach it east of the Nile. Even Napoleon found it im- 
possible to keep his hold on the country reached from 
so dangerous a base as that on the Mediterranean. 

Joynville himself, from his ship, witnessed the flight 
of the army, and found the stream held below by 
Moslem ships, which cut off the supplies of the force 
coming from Damietta. His small galley was captured, 
and flinging his jewels and relics into the Nile he tried 
to swim away with a Saracen, who was bent on making 
a valuable prisoner. Weak and helpless he was drawn up 
into a Moslem ship, and his life saved by his captor's 
assuring the crew that he was the king's cousin. " I 
felt," he says, " the knife at my throat, and had already 
cast myself on my knees on the ground, but God 
delivered me from this peril by aid of the poor Saracen, 
who led me to the castle where the Saracen chiefs were 
assembled." Here he was stripped of his coat of mail, 
but kindly treated, being ill with malarial fever, of which 
a native doctor cured him. 

The negotiations which were set afoot for the ransom 



ST. LOUIS. 353 

of the King and his barons were complicated by the 
intrigues of Bibars. In Egypt the military power con- 
stantly usurped the rights of the sultans, and the last of 
Saladin's dynasty itself of military origin was about 
to fall a prey to the commander of the memluks. 
Joynville witnessed some of the cruelties which made 
Bibars hateful in later times, including the murder of 
his chaplain, and of the sick. He saved the life of a little 
boy, who was the son of Lord Montfaucon de Bar, by 
never leaving hold of his hand ; and brought him safely 
to the mud enclosure where the barons of France were 
held prisoners. They refused to surrender any of the 
castles in Palestine for ransom, in spite of threats of 
losing their heads, and St. Louis was menaced with 
torture. At length a sum of five hundred thousand livres 
was agreed on for ransom of the army ; and this seems 
to have astonished the sultan, who was no doubt accus- 
tomed to haggling for his prisoners. " By my faith," he 
said, "the Frenchman is generous and l.bsral, when he 
does not deign to bargain about so large a sum of money, 
but has instantly complied with the first demand. Go 
and tell him from me that I make him a present of 
one hundred thousand livres." 

The prisoners were now taken down the Nile on four 
galleys to Damietta, where Queen Margaret of Provence 
was awaiting the birth of her second child amid all the 
terrors of war and of her husband's captivity. And here 
they landed before Ascension Sunday, at the sultan's 
summer house, only to witness his murder by his mem- 
luks, called Buhciri or " chosen youths," and knights of 



354 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

the Hauleka or " guard." These emirs being invited to a 
feast rose on him, and one who bore his sword cut off his 
ringers. El Muaddem thus wounded fled to a tower, 
which was set in flames with Greek fire. 

" When the sultan saw the fire gaining ground on all 
sides, he descended to the lawn of which I have spoken," 
writes Joynville, " and fled to the river ; but in his flight 
one of the Hauleka struck him a severe blow on the ribs 
with a sword, and then he flung himself, with the sword 
in him, into the Nile. Nine other knights pursued and 
killed him while in the water near the side of the 
galley." 

According to another chronicler of the age,* the cause 
of the dispute was the distribution of St. Louis' ransom. 
It was strange that the captive should thus witness the 
death of his captor, but for the moment it seemed that 
a general massacre of the prisoners would follow. The 
emirs, however, agreed to the terms of the sultan, if 
half the ransom were paid before the French left 
Damietta, and the other half in Acre, the sick and 
munitions of war and provisions of the army being 
retained as security. The agreement was to be ratified 
on the part of the Moslems by an oath by the " triple 
divorce," and on the king's side by his hope of Paradise. 
St. Louis refused to swear,f though urged by the aged 
Patriarch of Jerusalem, who was bound so tightly that 
his arms were swollen, and who was willing to take all 



* See note in Bonn's Chronicles of the Crusades, p. 448. 
t King Richard also (see Bohaed Din) was excused swearing to Saladin, 
this not being a royal custom. He gave his hand only. 



ST. LOUIS. 355 

the consequences on his conscience. Finally, it appears 
that the simple promise of the king was accepted. 

The Turkish emirs in Egypt do not appear to have 
been very strict Moslems. They greatly admired the 
fortitude of St. Louis', and are even said to have thought 
of making him their sultan. They also drank wine 
in excess, and were mainly intent on securing money. 
Their religious advisers consulted the Koran, and argued 
that the king's death would be allowed by its teaching ; 
but the emirs contented themselves with murdering all 
the sick, destroying the war machines, and making a 
general bonfire of the French stores, which burned for 
three days. St. Louis on his galley was taken again 
up the stream, and it is doubtful what would have been 
his fate but for the valour of certain Genoese bowmen, 
who suddenly left their galley, and boarding that on 
which the king was prisoner bent their bows against the 
Saracens. The Count of Poitou, however, remained as 
a hostage, and the agreement was duly observed by St. 
Louis, who borrowed money from the Templars to 
complete the total of two hundred thousand livrcs 
payable before leaving Damietta. 

The Earl of Salisbury had been slain at Damietta 
early in the war, and such barons as had been freed were 
so eager to leave Egypt that they refused even to wait 
till the Count of Poitou was free. The Counts of 
Brittany, Flanders, and Soissons set sail, leaving St. 
Louis and his two brothers behind. Joynville himself 
completed the total of the ransom, by the high-handed 
method of breaking open the Templars' cash box 



356 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

which the brethren remembered against him. Mean- 
while the queen suffered all the torments of anxiety, 
and alarm, expecting every day to become the mother of 
the unhappy John Tristan so named from the troubles 
of his birth the second son of St. Louis. Fearing a 
sudden Saracen attack she besought the old knight who 
guarded her to promise that he would behead her if the 
Saracens came, and received the comforting assurance 
" that he would cheerfully do so, and that he had before 
thought of it in case such an event should happen." 
She was forced to buy up all the provisions in Damietta 
at her own expense, to feed the Pisans and Genoese, 
who threatened to desert the town because of famine ; 
and within a few days after the birth of John Tristan she 
set sail with St. Louis in the early spring of 1250 A.D.* 
On this voyage Joynville, who was on the king's ship, 
witnessed a curious incident, which shews how little 
the French were worthy of their brave and gentle leader. 
St. Louis one day asked " what his brother the Count of 
Anjou was doing. . . . When the king was told 
that he was playing at tables with Sir Walter de 
Nemours, he arose hastily, though from his severe illness 
he could scarcely stand, and went staggering to where 
they were at play, when seizing the dice and tables he 
flung them into the sea, and was in a violent passion 
with his brother for so soon thinking of amusing himself 
by gaming, forgetful of the death of his brother the 
Count of Artois, and of the great perils from which the 
Lord had delivered them. But Sir Walter de Nemours 

* Regesia, No. 1190. 



ST. LOUIS. 357' 

suffered most, for the king flung all the money that lay 
on the tables after them into the sea." 

The Poictiers edition of Joynville's Memoirs contains 
at this point* a passage omitted by a later editor, 
respecting the Templars' attempt to retain the money 
which he had lodged with them at Acre. By threatening 
to expose the Order Joynville recovered it, and adds : " I 
took good care in future not to trouble these monks with 
the keeping of my cash." Only some hundred knights 
remained with St. Louis, out of two thousand eight 
hundred whom he had led from Cyprus ; and his brothers, 
the Counts of Anjou and Poitou, went home, while he 
remained with any who would stay, intent .on doing 
something that might strengthen the Syrian Christians. 
Joynville gives a picture of his own meditations as to 
what course to adopt, and the passage seems to explain 
the charm which St. Louis exercised over so many. 

"While I was thus meditating," he says, " the king 
leant on my shoulders, and held my head between his 
hands. I thought it was Sir Philip de Nemours, who 
had been fretting me all the day for the advice which 
I had given the king, and said to him, ' Sir Philip, do 
leave me quiet in my misfortune.' As I turned round 
the king covered my face with his hands, and I then 
knew it was the king, from an emerald on his finger. I 
wished to make some reparation, as one that had 
improperly spoken ; but the king bade me be silent, 
and continued, ' Now, Sieur de Joynville, tell me how 
you, who are so young a man, could have the courage 

* Bohn's Chronicles of the Crusades, p. 463. 



558 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

to advise me to remain in these countries, contrary to 
the opinion of all my greatest nobles.' I replied that 
if I had advised him well he should follow it ; but if the 
contrary, he ought to think no more on what I had said. 
' And will you remain with me here if I should stay? ' 
' Yea, certes,' answered I ; ' were it at my own or at 
another's expense.' The king said that he was pleased 
with the advice I had given, but ordered me to tell this 
to no one." 

These gallant gentlemen stayed, therefore, while the 
cowards, drinkers, and dicers sped home, and Joynville's 
heavy expenses were paid by St. Louis. The news of 
the misfortunes of the army was received with grief in 
Europe, but the Emperor's assurances of sorrow were 
little credited by Joynville. King Henry III was asked 
to take the Cross ; but few of the English acceded to 
the call "because of the extortions of the Roman court," 
which was then powerful in England, where so many 
benefices of the Church were given by the Pope to 
Italians. The Holy War was desolating Germany, and 
in 1250 Frederic II died at Naples, and his son was 
excommunicated. From Flanders and Picardy disor- 
derly mobs, called Pastoureaux, advanced on Paris, led 
by a certain Jacob, with a lamb painted on a banner, 
mocking the monks and clergy, and rioting at Bourges, 
where they were dispersed. Amid these troubles Queen 
Blanche, the mother of St. Louis, died, and the news 
reached him in Palestine in 1253, to his great grief. " On 
my presenting myself," says Joynville, " he extended his 
arms and said, 'Ah, Seneschal, I have lost my mother. "' 



ST. LOUIS. 359 

An alliance was offered to the king by the Sultan of 
Damascus, but declined because the captive nobles had 
not as yet been rescued from Egypt, including many 
knights of the Temple and Hospital.* The treaty with 
Egypt left to the Christians in Palestine the towns of 
Jaffa, Arsuf, Caesarea, Chateau Pelerin, Haifa, Tell 
Keimun (east of Carmel), Nazareth, Safed, Belfort, Tyre, 
and Sidon ; and St. Louis spent his time and money in 
rebuilding the walls of the chief fortresses in the plains. 
The Egyptians were meanwhile at war with Aleppo, 
and the widow of a Tartar khan sent to summon St. 
Louis to obedience. The embassy of Rubruquis was 
then despatched, and meanwhile three years were spent 
in Palestine, till all the king's funds were exhausted. In 
1251 and 1252 Sidon, Haifa, and Caesarea were rebuilt, 
and the walls of the latter still remain. Banias was 
also seized, but the Turks drove out the Teutonic 
knights soon after. At Easter time, in 1252, a treaty 
was made with Egypt, by which Gezer, Beit Jibrin, 
Darum, and Jezreel were given up to the Moslems. 
The Turks and Tartars from Aleppo advanced to the 
borders of Egypt, and wasted Tripoli, and Krak the 
chief fortress of the Hospitallers. Thus, after so much 
useless misery and bloodshed, the policy of Frederic II 
prevailed over the Papal policy of Tartar alliance, and 
St. Louis left in 1254, after six years of struggle and 
suffering, a Palestine which was neither stronger nor 
weaker than when he first approached its shores. 
Frederic II had done more, and Richard of England 

* Regcs'.a, Nos. 1191-5, 1199. 



360 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

had accomplished much more, than St. Louis could 
effect when deserted by his mutinous army. 

Joynville's chronicle of the incidents of the three 
years spent in Palestine is discursive, but full of interest. 
He gives an account of an embassy from the "Old Man 
of the Mountain," or sheikh of the Assassins, to St. 
Louis. The peculiarities of this secret society Jiave been 
already noticed. They were at this time tributaries of 
the Templars, and aimed at independence through the 
king's consent. The envoys claimed that Frederic of 
Germany, the King of Hungary, and the Sultan of 
Egypt, had all been friends with the Assassins. Their 
boasting was little regarded by the Masters of the 
Temple and Hospital, who knew them well, and 
ordered them within fifteen days to bring more humble 
messages from tbeir sheikh. The presents then sent 
included a ring, a shirt, a crystal figure of an elephant, 
and figures of men in amber and crystal set with gold, 
in a case which filled the room with perfume. Very 
friendly messages were sent with these by the sheikh, 
and the king in return sent, by Father Yves, gold cups, 
vessels of silver, and scarlet robes. The king's envoy 
reported that the Assassins were followers of Aly, and 
that they cursed their children if afraid to go to battle 
without armour. Father Yves was also shewn a copy 
of the " Gospel of Peter " in the sheikh's house an 
apocryphal work, no doubt taken from Maronites who 
had quoted it in 1099 to Godfrey, when he passed 
through the Lebanon. Only two or three tattered 
leaves of this work recently discovered are now 



ST. LOUIS. 361 

known, which relate the events of the Crucifixion. The 
Old Man of the Mountain, speaking of this gospel, 
explained his views as follows : " In the beginning of 
the world the soul of Abel, after his brother Cain had 
murdered him, entered the body of Noah, and the soul 
of Noah on his decease went into the body of Abraham, 
and after Abraham it entered the body of St. Peter, who 
is now under the earth." We have seen already that 
this doctrine of metempsychosis really formed part of 
the exoteric teaching of the Assassins, and of other 
sects ; and Joynville's account is therefore easily under- 
stood, though Father Yves appears to have been puzzled 
at such beliefs among followers of Aly. 

During this period Joynville obtained leave to visit 
Tortosa north of Tripoli, where was St. Luke's portrait 
of the Virgin,* and which many pilgrims then frequented. 
He relates that while St. Louis was still in Egypt a 
poor demoniac was brought before the Altar of Our 
Lady in Tortosa, " and as his friends who had brought 
him were praying to Our Lady to cure him and restore 
his senses, the devil whom the poor creature had in his 
body replied, 'Our Lady is not here but in Egypt, 
whither she is gone to aid the King of France and the 
Christians, who land this day on the Holy Land to 
make war on the pagans, who are on horseback to 
receive them.' What the devil had uttered was put 
down in writing ; and when it was brought to the legate, 
who was with the King of France, he said that it was 
on that very day that we had arrived in Egypt ; and I 

* ^z Jacques Je Vilry, p. 20, English translation. 

2 \\ 



362 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

am sure " (Joynville adds) " that the good Lady Mary 
was of the utmost service to us." 

Joynville was charged to buy some camlets or 
camel-hair cloth for the king at Tortosa, to be given 
to the cordeliers in France ; and an amusing incident 
arose on his return to Acre, with the camlets and a few 
relics given by the Christians to himself. 

" You must know," he writes, " that the queen had 
heard that I had been on a pilgrimage, and had brought 
back some relics. I sent her by one of my knights four 
pieces of the camlets which I had purchased ; and v/hen 
the knight entered her apartment s,he cast herself on 
her knees before the camlets that were wrapped up in a 
towel ; and the knight, seeing the queen do this, flung 
himself on his knees also. The Queen, observing him, 
said, ' Rise, sir knight, it does not become you to kneel, 
who are the bearer of such holy relics.' My knight 
replied that it was not relics, but camlets, that he had 
brought as a present from me. When the queen and 
her ladies heard this, they burst into laughter, and the 
Queen said, ' Sir knight, the deuce take your lord for 
having made me kneel to a parcel of camlets ! ' ' 

Queen Margaret was, however, a forgiving woman, for 
she wept much when a little later the news of her mother- 
in-law's death came from France, following the many 
letters in which Queen Blanche had begged her son 
to come home to see her. Yet there had been such 
jealousy between the mother and the wife of St. Louis 
that, at one time, he could only meet the latter by stealth. 
Joynville's consolation of his master in this sorrow was 



57: LOUIS 363 

stoical. " Whatever grief the valiant man suffers in his 
mind, he ought not to shew it on his countenance, 
nor let it be publicly known, for he that does so 
gives pleasure to his enemies and sorrow to his 
friends." 

At length the walls of Sidon, Caesarea, and Jaffa were 
finished, and the king prepared during Lent to return 
to his masterless kingdom in 1254 A.D. On the eve of 
St. Mark after Easter the wind held fair, and the king and 
queen embarked. " The king," says our chronicler, " told 
me he was born on St. Mark's day ; and I replied that he 
might well say he had been born again on St. Mark's day, 
in thus escaping from such a pestilent land, where he had 
remained so long." At Cyprus they fell in with a sea 
fog. and stuck fast on a sandbank, and the divers reported 
the ship to be injured in the keel. But St. Louis would 
not desert the vessel, which had nearly six hundred 
persons on board, and it weathered a furious gale which 
followed, and reached the port of Hyeres, in Provence, 
after ten weeks spent at sea. The Queen vowed a 
silver ship to St. Nicholas for her safe return to 
France ; and the vow was paid, the ship being repre- 
sented with figures of the king and queen, their children, 
and the sailors, also in silver, and with ropes of silver 
thread. 

The further history of St. Louis was unconnected with 
Palestine ; but the influence of his Eastern experience 
was felt in France, where he not only established just 
laws, and put down the scandals of official corruption, 
but also gathered learned men, and collected manuscripts 

2 B 2 



364 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. , 

in the monasteries, and gave to his cities privileges like 
those which the Italians enjoyed in the East, so securing 
their loyalty, and curbing the power of his barons. His 
brother Charles, Count of Anjou, who deserted him in 
Palestine, was given the crown of the Two Sicilies by 
the Pope, and killed Manfred, the natural son of 
Frederic II, at Benevento in 1266 A.D. His honour was 
further stained by the execution of Conradin, son of the 
Emperor Conrad IV, in Naples, which was avenged by 
the Sicilian Vespers in 1282 A.D. But St. Louis took 
no part in these struggles of the papal party against the 
heirs of Frederic II, and peacefully strengthened and 
enlarged his dominions. He lived for sixteen years 
after his return from Syria, attaining the age of fifty-four. 
In 1270 A.D. he again took the cross at St. Denys, and 
sailed on the 5th of July for Tunis, in Genoese ships. 
Landing his army near Carthage, he strove to wrest this 
province from Bibars, the Egyptian sultan ; but the 
summer heat overcame his soldiers, and he himself was 
stricken down with fever, and died on the 25th of August. 
His advice to his son (given at Fontainebleau during 
one of his illnesses) shews us the spirit of his rule: "Fail- 
son, I beseech thee to make thyself beloved by the 
people of thy kingdom ; for in truth I should like better 
that a Scot fresh from Scotland should govern the 
subjects of my realm well and loyally, than that thou 
shouldst rule them wickedly and reproachfully." 

On this last expedition Joynville did not accompany 
his friend and master, pleading the disorders which had 
arisen in his estates during the six years of his absence 



sr. LOUIS. 365 

in Palestine. He had been constantly with St. Louis 
,for twenty-two years, and survived him for forty-five, 
attaining to the great age of ninety-two as Seneschal 
of Champagne. He saw the prosperous reign of the 
son, and the stormier days of the grandson, of St. Louis, 
and penned his memoir in 1309 A.D., publishing it after 
the death of the latter in 1315 A.D., when Louis X, 
great grandson of the saint, became king. He saw the 
Templar Order destroyed, and lived at least a quarter 
of a century after the final loss of Acre. But he never 
forgot the friend of his youth, as his closing words may 
shew us : 

" I was on a certain day in my chapel of Joynville 
when I thought I saw him resplendent with glory 
before me. I was very proud to see him thus in my 
castle, and said to him, ' Sire, when you shall depart 
hence I will conduct you to another of my castles that 
I have at Chevillon, where you shall also be lodged.' 
Methought he answered me with a smile : ' Sieur de 
Joynville, from my affection for you I will not, since I 
am here, depart hence so soon.' When I awoke I 
bethought myself that it was the pleasure of God, and 
his own, that I should lodge him in my chapel, and 
instantly afterwards I had an altar erected to the honour 
of God and of him." 

More surely than by papal canonisation, or by the 
relics of his consecrated skull in Paris, the memory of 
St. Louis was so preserved enshrined in the faithful 
heart of this brave and gentle knight, who has left to us 
the true story of his life. 



366 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE TARTARS. 

ST. LdUIS was the first of European kings to obtain 
real knowledge of the Tartars from their own country ; 
and in order to understand the history of the last forty 
years of Latin rule in Syria, we must look back to 
consider what had happened in Central Asia early in 
the thirteenth century. The power of the Christians 
waned from year to year, after the Kharezmian inroad, 
and the struggle for Syria was one between Egypt and 
the Tartars, in which the Latins played only a minor 
part. After the return of St. Louis the Papal policy 
prevailed until the loss of Acre, and the Christians sided 
with the Tartars against Bibars ; but in the end the 
Egyptians proved the strongest, and Islam prevailed 
against Christian and Mongol alike. 

The term " Tartar " (less correctly written " Tatar ") 
appears to mean a " nomad." Under this title were 
included the Mongols (from the Kirghiz Steppes and 
Khokand to the Sialkoi Mountains), the Kalmuks, the 
Kalkas, the Eleuths on the Hi River, and the Buriats 
in southern Siberia. The Kalkas dwelt in the Altai 
Mountains and in the Gobi desert south of this chain. 



THE TARTARS. 367 



The Tartar tribes thus covered a mighty stretch of cold 
and arid desert, east of the Turkish regions (which 
stretched from Lake Balkash to the Caspian) and 
north of, Thibet and China. Their ancient capital, 
Karakorum, was near the centre of Mongolia, three 
thousand miles from Baghdad, and here, according to 
the ancient Uigur legend, a beam of heavenly light fell 
on a tree on the mountain, and from it were born five 
boys the forefathers of the Mongol race. The Mongols, 
or Kukai Mongol, " the heavenly race," as Genghiz Khan 
called his people, were of the same stock as the Turks 
of the Oxus region and Kirghiz Steppes to the west, 
but had grown into a distinct race differing both in 
type and in language. The Turks Uzbek, Kirghiz, and 
Uigur were lean and angular, with rosy faces and 
hooked noses, resembling the ancient Hittites of the 
Syrian monuments. The Mongols, or Tartars, were 
stout and thick-set, with high broad shoulders and squat 
figures, swarthy and ugly, with short broad noses and 
pointed projecting chins more like the Manchus and 
the Mongols of China than like Turks. They lived in 
wild and barren lands, enduring cold, which was severe 
for the latitude, and where no shelter could be found, 
and so became inured to hardship, and accustomed to 
long unending journeys. The dialects spoken over the 
whole Mongolian region differed little from each other, 
and had a recognisable connection with the Turkish lan- 
guage. The original beliefs of the Tartars were similar 
to those of the earliest Mongols, whose civilisation we 
trace up to the dawn of history in Chaldea and Armenia- 



368 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

It was an animism which regarded all natural pheno- 
mena as due to the acts of spirits which abode in 
mountain and river, in trees and stones, in fire and 
water, with adoration of the sun, the moon, the stars, 
the winds and the heavens and earth. 

We have already seen that the legend of Prester John, 
in the twelfth century, was founded on the conquests of 
the Khitan prince Ung Khan.* The Khitai were a 
Turkic people, whose home was west of Lake Balkash, 
but who, in the tenth century, were powerful throughout 
Central Asia and in China. In uy/A.D. Pope Alex- 
ander III wrote to the supposed Prester John, as King 
of the Indians,! to say that he had heard he was a 
Christian, and to teach him the Catholic faith ; but the 
Khitan empire was then approaching its end, and never 
came into contact with the Christian kingdom in Syria. 
Genghiz Khan a Mongol of the Altai Mountains 
raided on the Khitai from the east, while the Kirghiz 
attacked them from the northern steppes. He is said to 
have married a daughter of Ung Khan to his son, and 
from this marriage sprang Mangu Khan, who thus 
might claim Western Turkestan by right of his mother. 
In 1218 A.D. Genghiz Khan left his camp in the Altai 
Mountains, and spent the summer on the Irtysh River, 
which flows north into Siberia, east of the Kirghiz Steppes 
and north of Lake Balkash. Here he was joined by 
the Uigurs, and began his western raids in the time of 

* See Journal Royal Asiatic Society, North China Branch, No. X, 1876, 
"Notices of Mediaeval Geography and History of Central and West Asia 
from Mongol and Chinese Sources." E. Bretschneider, M.D. 

t Regesta, No. 544. 



THE TARTARS. 369 



Frederic II of Germany. The Kin Tartars had risen in 
China against the Khitai, as early as 1115 A.D., and their 
dynasty lasted till 1234 A.D. They were of the Manchu 
stock, and friendly to the Mongols, sending ambassadors 
to Genghiz Khan in 1220.* The aim of Genghiz Khan 
was to establish his sway in the west, and in 1221 he 
crossed the Caucasus, taking Derbend and defeating 
the Georgians at Tiflis. He was opposed not only by 
the Christians of Eastern Armenia, and the wild Alans 
and Ases of the Caucasus, and the Circassians, but also by 
the Kipchaks, a nomad Turkish people north-east of the 
Caspian, whom he again attacked two years later, and 
penetrated into Russia, raiding on the Bulgarians of the 
Volga. 

In 1236 a yet more serious outbreak of the Tartars 
under Batu, grandson of Genghiz Khan, against Russia 
and Persia took place, while the Kharezmians were 
driven from their homes and let loose on Palestine. 
The campaigns lasted till 1243 A.D., and the Mongols 
ravaged Northern and Southern Russia, the Caucasus, 
Poland, Silesia, and Moravia. In 1241 they invaded 
Hungary, but returned eastwards two years later. The 
famous " Golden Horde " was established on the Volga 
by a son of Genghiz Khan. Southern Russia and 
Lesser Armenia became subject to the great Khan at 
Karakorum as their suzerain. Mangu Khan succeeded 
his grandfather, and it was to him that St. Louis sent 
envoys in 1250 A.D. The devastating struggle of Pope 
and Emperor : the struggle with Rome in England : 

* Chinese Recorder, VI, p. 83. 



3?o THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

the failure of France in Egypt : the power of the 
Moslems in Spain, so weakened Europe that it became 
more and more difficult to give help to the Holy Land. 
The great hope of the Papacy lay in the conversion of 
the Tartars ; and zealous monks were sent by St. Louis 
and by various popes, down even to the close of the 
thirteenth century, to bring news from the interior of 
Asia, and to attempt the Christianising of its rulers. 
While St. Louis was preparing for war in Cyprus 
envoys came from a Tartar khan, with Friar Andrew 
de Longtumal, whom the Pope had previously sent to 
the East. In return two Dominicans were despatched 
one of whom was apparently Brother Andrew. It 
was stated that this khan had become a Christian, 
but this appears to have been false.* The monks were 
accompanied by a large train of persons, bearing a tent 
to be used as a chapel, embroidered inside with pictures 
of the Annunciation and Passion. The khan in ques- 
tion was, however, only one of the provincial rulers, and 
the mission failed, the monks returning to Acre and 
thence not finding the king, who was at Caesarea to 
France. 

In May, 1253, the Franciscan brother William de 
Rubruquis, also sent by St. Louis, set out from Constan- 
tinople to visit Mangu Khan ; and to him we owe the 
first important account of the Tartar civilisation. He 
crossed the Black Sea to the Crimea, then held by 
Greeks trading with the north for ermine and other 
furs, and so reached the mouth of the Don. The 

* Rubruquis, p. 95 (Pinkerton), and Joyr.ville, p. 385 (Bohn's edition). 



THE TARTARS. 371 



people of Asov and Georgia were then independent of 
the Tartars, and the South of Russia was peopled by 
Alans, who were Greek Christians, on the Volga, and by 
pagans and Moslems. The superstitions of the Crimea 
seem, however, to shew a strong Tartar element in the 
old Comanian population, which retained the Scythian 
customs of burial described by Herodotus, and which 
was allied with the Latin emperors of Constantinople. 

The Mongols proper were first encountered on the 
Volga, where a certain Sartak had been reported a 
Christian. Here Rubruquis found a Knight Templar 
from Cyprus, and a Nestorian priest named Coiat. The 
interview with the Mongol chief was a strange one, the 
monks in their best vestments bearing a missal, a bible, 
and a psalter, on cushions, and carrying the cross before 
them. The Tartars were camped in felt huts, with 
numerous wagons, and were seated drinking koumiss 
the fermented mare's milk famous from the days of 
Herodotus. The king's letter, with translations in 
Syriac and Arabic, was presented, and by the aid of the 
Templar and of certain Armenian priests was rendered 
into Turkish. The envoys were sent on to Sartak's 
father, the famous Batu, a brother of Mangu Khan, but 
it became at once apparent that none of these Tartar 
leaders were Christians. Batu was camped on the east 
bank of the Volga, in an ordu or city of felt cabins of 
great extent. He had already been visited by Piano 
Carpini, the monk sent by Pope Innocent IV, eight 
years earlier. He received Rubruquis in a great assem- 
bly, seated with his wife on a broad throne gilt over, 



372 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

with three steps. The lesser wives surrounded the throne, 
and koumiss was handed in cups of gold and silver set 
with gems (the spoils of recent conquests). Rubruquis 
was forced to kneel on both knees before this magnate, 
and learned that he must travel two thousand five 
hundred miles to the east, to present himself to the 
great suzerain Mangu Khan, whose empire he entered 
on crossing the Volga. 

This wonderful journey he safely accomplished, riding 
though a stout and heavy man long distances every 
day, and fasting duly. For two months, from the 
middle of September to the middle of November, the 
way led across the Kirghiz Steppes to the north shores 
of the Issyk Kul an average daily ride of twenty-five 
miles. After a rest of a fortnight the travellers hurried 
on, crossing snowy tracts in December, and reached 
Karakorum by the end of the year, having marched 
about forty miles each day. 

The capital of Mangu Khan was apparently a small 
town, but the Court was large. In one street or bazaar 
were Moslem merchants, in another Chinese artificers. 
The population included many strangers Hungarians, 
Alans, Ruthenians, Georgians, and Armenians some of 
whom, no doubt, were captives. A Frenchwoman from 
Metz, named Pascha, had married a Ruthenian, and was 
an attendant of the Tartar queen. A French goldsmith 
of Paris, named William Bouchier, had been brought 
from Belgrade, and was busy with his art in Karakorum, 
fashioning wonderful silver fountains, for wine and 
koumiss, in the Khan's palace. His son was interpreter 



THE TARTARS. 373 



for Rubruquis. A clerk named Raymond, from Acre, 
had come the year before from the Legate to greet 
Mangu Khan as he said and was sent back with a 
Mongol envoy charged to bring a full account of 
western countries to his master. 

The professed creed of the country was neither 
Christian nor Moslem though all religions were toler- 
ated but that species of corrupt Buddhism which 
preserved much of the ancient paganism of Central Asia. 
The shamans wore the yellow robes, and shaved the 
head, like Buddhists. They taught the doctrine of a single 
deity and an immortal soul ; but Mangu Khan's actions 
were determined by their calculation of eclipses, and by 
divination with mutton bones. The Armenians and 
Nestorians at the Court had great hopes of his conversion, 
but Rubruquis was shrewd enough to see that the Khan 
only sought popularity with all. Mangu, indeed, ex- 
plained his own beliefs very clearly to the pious and fear- 
less monk, at one of their interviews, in these words : 

"We Mongols believe that there is but one God, 
through whom we live and die, and we have an upright 
heart towards Him " (but) " God who hath given to the 
hand divers fingers, so He hath given many ways to 
men. He hath given you the Scriptures, and the 
Christians keep them not." " He hath given to us 
shamans, and we do that which they bid us, and we live 
in peace." 

The accounts of popular superstition scattered through 
Rubruquis' narrative are interesting as shewing the real 
beliefs of the Mongols. They were a subtle and crafty 



374 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

people, whose object was dominion ; and they were not 
unwilling that the Christians of the West should regard 
them as possible allies. But the ancient paganism, 
which had preceded the appearance of Buddhist and 
Christian missionaries in their midst, was not extinct. 
On the walls of the huts felt images the Tartar penates 
were fastened, and libations of koumiss were offered to 
the Fire, the Water, the Wind, and the Spirits of the 
dead. Great importance was ascribed to not treading on 
the threshold in entering the palace, and this was a very 
ancient and widespread superstition. It is still common 
among Moslems, especially as regards mosques, and it 
is noticed in the Bible : for the priests of Dagon " lept 
over the threshold."* Rubruquis' companion was for- 
bidden the Court, because " he stumbled at the threshold 
of the house." 

The object of Rubruquis would seem to have been 
either to baptise, or to witness a baptism, of Mangu Khan. 
Batu reported that he came to ask for an army to aid the 
Christians but this he denied, saying that he had been 
sent by St. Louis because Sartak was reported to be a 
Christian, and that otherwise no letters would have been 
sent to the khans. It seems, however, that he had secret 
instructions, and was very anxious to be able truthfully 
to report a conversion. Other Christians were equally 
eager to effect this triumph of the Faith, and an Armenian 
monk assured Rubruquis that at Easter he expected to 
baptise Mangu Khan. All that really took place, how- 
ever, was a Nestorian Church ceremony, at which he 

* I Sam. v, 8 ; Zeph. i, 9. Rubrnquis (Pinkerton, pp. 66-67). 



THE TARTARS. 375 



and his queen were present. The khan was perfumed 
with incense, and blessed by the priests ; his attention 
was roused by a Bible which the Franciscans carried. 
The second wife, who was ill, was induced to kiss a silver 
cross, and gave meat and drink to the monks ; she was 
also dosed with rhubarb, and recovered her health ; but 
as to the conversions all that Rubruquis could say was, 
" I saw a silver bason brought, but whether they baptised 
her or not I know not" 

A very remarkable controversy was ordered to be 
publicly carried on between advocates of various religions, 
in presence of judges appointed by the Khan. The first 
debate which, like the rest, was ordered to be without 
contentions or injurious words, or tumult was between 
the Franciscan and a Chinese, who was driven to assert 
that no God was omnipotent which the Saracens re- 
ceived with shouts of ridicule. The next was between 
Nestorians and Saracens. The arguments led to no 
result ; but, " the conference ended, the Nestorians and 
Saracens sang together with a loud voice, . . . and 
after that they all drank most plentifully.' 

The account given by Rubruquis of the Nestorians 
may be tinged with prejudice, yet, considering the 
character of the Oriental clergy, it is also possible that 
it is true. He accuses their monks and priests of being 
usurers and drunkards, and says that some had many 
wives like the Tartars. Yet it was from the earlier 
Nestorians and Jacobites that much of the rude civilisa- 
tion of Central Asia was derived. Rubruquis speaks of 
the Mongol writing, which was in vertical instead of 



376 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

horizontal lines ; and there were already three scripts in 
Mongolia the Indian alphabet brought by Buddhists, 
the Arabic brought by Saracens, and a development of 
the Syriac brought by Nestorians.* The latter mission- 
aries had penetrated even to China before 650 A.D., and 
taught letters to the Uigurs a Turkish tribe who were 
the chief scribes of Mangu Khan's Court. The Uigur 
alphabet was in use all over Central Asia, as far east as 
Manchuria, and an extant MS. of the fifteenth century 
in Vienna, preserves in this writing a Tartar poem of 
the eleventh century, concerning the duties of mankind, 
called the Kudatku Bilik, or " blessed knowledge." In 
the reign of Kubla Khan, the brother and successor of 
Mangu (1259 to 1294 A.D.), the Buddhists perfected this 
Uigur alphabet for the necessities of Mongol speech ; 
and the vertical writing which Rubruquis observed is a 
mark of the Syriac origin of the script (such an arrange- 
ment being not unusual in Syria in earlier ages among 
Greeks and Jacobites alike), though the influence of 
Chinese methods may also be suspected. 

The return journey of Rubruquis led from the Volga 
through Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Iconium. He met 
in Georgia four preaching friars from Provence, bearing 
the Pope's letters to Mangu Khan, and missed on the 
road Haithon, King of Armenia, who also travelled in 
1254 and 1255 A.D. to see Batu and Mangu Khan, 
proceeding from Cilicia to Kars and Derbend, and thence 
to the region of the Kara-Khitai, near Lake Balkash. 
The elder Polo (father of the famous Marco) was also in 

* Taylor, Hist, of Alphabet, Vol. I, pp. 297-311. 



THE TARTARS. 377 

Mongolia during the time of Rubruquis' journey. 
Haithon appears to have been successful in his endeavours 
to strengthen the Christian cause in Syria and Armenia :* 
for Mangu Khan promised him peace and acceptance of 
the Christian faith, if he would acknowledge him as 
suzerain. He professed to send Hulagu to Jerusalem to 
restore the Sepulchre to the Christians, and to dethrone 
the khalif. ^Haithon also made peace with the Sultan 
of Iconium, and with Batu Khan (who had promised not 
to destroy Christian churches), for which services he 
was much commended by the Pope. The letters 
which Rubruquis brought back to St. Louis, from Mangu 
Khan, denounced the former envoys to Cyprus as im- 
postors, and invited the king to become his vassal, and 
so enjoy peace and friendship. 

This strange correspondence was continued by Pops 
Nicholas IV half a century later. He wrote, in 1288 A.U., 
to Argun, the Tartar prince,f by the Bishop of Barsauma 
(a Jacobite), exhorting him to receive baptism, which 
he undertook to do on reaching Jerusalem. The Tartar 
queens were exhorted at the same time to cherish the 
faith. In the year following the Franciscans, who were 
zealous in preaching among the Tartars, were sent by 
the same Pope to Kubla Khan ; and in 1291 (the year 
of the loss of Acre) Nicholas IV admonished a Tartar 
princess to convert the brothers of Argun. It appears 
that the son of the latter was expected to be about to 



* Rtgesta, Nos. 1211, 1215, 1456, 1475, I tfj-, 1479, 1489, 1491, 1515, 
1516, 1517. 
-f Son of Atngha and grandson of Hulagtu 

2 C 



378 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

receive baptism, but the success of the Moslems put an 
end to all these hopes. 

In Anatolia Rubruquis found only about a tithe of the 
population to be Moslems, the majority being Armenians 
and Greeks. The sultan had a Georgian wife, and 
another who was Greek, and a third who was Turkish. 
There were many Venetians and other Franks in 
Iconium. The sultan was a tributary of the Tartars, 
like the King of Armenia, having been overcome in one 
of the earlier expeditions to the West. The opinion of 
Rubruquis appears to have been that future Crusades 
should be by the land route through Asia Minor, and 
that no reliance could be placed on any treaty with 
Tartars. 

The travels of Marco Polo, who lived twenty-six years 
in the lands of the Khan, are more famous than those of 
Rubruquis. His father Nicolo, and his uncle Maffio, set 
out from Venice in 1250 A.D., and came back safely nine- 
teen years later. Marco went with them, at the age of 
nineteen, on their second expedition, and returned in 
1295 A.D. They went first to Bokhara beyond the Oxus, 
and were chosen as interpreters of a mission to Kubla 
Khan, bearing also letters from the new Pope Gregory X, 
handed over by monks who were afraid to venture into 
Mongolia, and who remained with the Templar Master 
in Armenia. A whole year was occupied in crossing a 
distance equal to that which Rubruquis traversed in 
three months, the reason being that floods and snow 
delayed their journey. Marco Polo was, however, far 
better fitted for the task of exploration, being able to 



THE TARTARS. 



write and read four languages spoken among the Tartars. 
He also travelled much further to China, India, and 
Java ; and his account of the countries he visited gives 
evidence of the widespread trade of the age, which 
enriched Genoa and Venice.* 

In Armenia he describes the people as degenerate 
and drunken. Here he saw the petroleum of the Baku 
wells, which furnished material for the Greek fire. In 
the Kurdish mountains he notes the manufacture of 
buckram from cotton, and the silk factories. Among 
the mingled peoples of Mosul Arabs, Nestorians, 
Jacobites, and Armenians, who fled from the Tartars 
in Persia he mentions muslins, silks, and cloth of gold ; 
and at Baghdad velvets, damask, pearls, and other 
precious things. In Persia caravans were journeying, 
and the artificers in the towns wrought in gold and silk: 
the country was well tilled, and full of wine and fruits. 
East of Persia Marco Polo entered the Tartar dominions, 
and found mines of turquoise. From Ormuz came spices 
and pearls and ivory, and here he notices the Assassins, 
and the junks which had come from China. Among 
the wild populations of Eastern Persia he found traders 
with balas-rubies, lapis-lazuli, silver, copper, and lead. 
At Samarkand, west of the Pamirs, were fair gardens 
and a Church of St. John. In Kashgar the soil was 
fertile, and vines, fruits, cotton, flax, and hemp were 
cultivated. Crossing the great Gobi desert to Kara- 
korum, Marco Polo found the rich Tartars clothed in 
sable and ermine and cloth of gold : " they are hardy," 

* Yule's Marco Polo, 2 vols. London. 1871. 

2 C 2 



380 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

he says, " active, brave, but somewhat cruel ; will con- 
tinue two days and nights on horseback armed, exceed- 
ing patient, and obedient to their lords." The khan was 
regarded as a deity, and his birthday was the great feast 
of the year, when rich presents were given, and pro- 
cessions of elephants paraded his treasures. Christians, 
Jews, Moslems, and Buddhists were alike commanded to 
pray, after their own rites, for the health and good fortune 
of the khan. 

The service of the empire was conducted along roads 
with regular posts. Corn was stored against dearth. 
Coal was dug from the mountains, and used for fuel, 
while about the same time the people of Newcastle (in 
1272 A.D.) obtained their first licence from Henry III 
to open coal mines. The coal seams of the Tien Shan, 
north of the Gobi, have been seen burning in our own 
times by the Russians.* The Tartar cycle of twelve 
years is described by Marco Polo, and was imported into 
China. It would seem that the early Mongol civilisation, 
which existed in Media before the rise of the Semitic 
peoples in the earliest known historic age was never 
entirely lost, and it had flourished among the Khitai, 
from whom the Mongols derived their arts and literature. 

These accounts have carried us almost as far away 
from Syria as Marco Polo himself went ; but without 
some insight into the conditions of Tartar life it is diffi- 
cult rightly to understand the events that followed. It 
is clear, on the one hand, that the Mongols were not 
wholly savage, nor wholly ignorant of Western civilisa- 

* \Mlli.uns, Middle King.iom^ Vol. I, p. 215. 



THE TARTARS. 381 



tion. They not only knew the Christians, but had 
become acquainted with three Churches the Latin, the 
Armenian, and the Nestorian : they were in contact with 
the Jews both Rabbinical and Karaite with the 
Moslems, and with the northern Buddhists, who had 
recently penetrated into Mongolia in the thirteenth 
century, from China and Thibet. Their highest religious 
conceptions were the unity of God, and the immortality 
of the soul. They could write and read, and encouraged 
trade and arts ; and the justice and strength of their 
great khans, Genghiz, and his grandsons Mangu and 
Kubla, united many Tartar and Turkish tribes into a 
single almost irresistible force. Three years after the 
return of Rubruquis Hulagu, brother of Mangu Khan, 
crossed through Persia and besieged Baghdad. In 
1258 A.D. he put to death El Mustasim, the last of the 
Abbaside khalifs, and no Moslem ruler claimed to be 
khalif from that time for two centuries and a half, until 
the Osmanli sultan Selim I assumed the title. The 
Arab khalifate had been but a shadow for two centuries 
before it finally disappeared, but its death blow was 
dealt by the Tartars. Yet while Marco Polo was in 
Mongolia the attempt to conquer Syria failed, and he 
returned to find the Moslems owners of all the Holy 
Land. He went home by Trebizonde and Constanti- 
nople, and was unrecognised at first, so thoroughly 
Tartar had he become in a quarter of a century ; but, 
with his father and uncle, he lived long after in Venice, 
and after his Genoese captivity dwelt rich and honoured 
in his native city, while his book of travels circulated 



382 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

in Latin and Italian through Europe. By the year 
1260 A.D., or nine years before Marco Polo left Venice 
with his father, the summit of Mongol success had been 
reached ; and though a second attempt to conquer 
Syria was made in 1280, the Mongols did not again 
reach Palestine itself. 

After the capture of Baghdad Hulagu advanced 
across the Euphrates, having been joined by his 
Armenian vassal. The Preceptor of the Templars fore- 
saw their approach as early as 1256,* and four years 
later they attacked Aleppo and Damascus, and advanced 
to the borders of Egypt. Hulagu was, however, forced 
to return to Baghdad to put down a revolt, and left 
Ketboga ravaging Sidon and threatening Acre, afttr 
having demolished the churches and mosques of 
Damascus ; but Bibars was already advancing from 
Egypt to drive back the invaders. On the 3rd of Septem- 
ber, 1260, Sultan Kutuz defeated the Tartars at Ain 
Talut two months before he was himself murdered by his 
memluks. 

During this invasion the Christians were divided 
among themselves. The Pisans and Genoese quarrelled 
in Acre, the Greeks were at enmity with Venice, and the 
Templars and Hospitallers were also striving with each 
other. The Legate wrote, in 1260 A.D., to inform all 
Christian princes of Hulagu's conquests at Aleppo, 
Hamah, and Emesa, and of the flight of the Damascus 
sultan to Egypt. The princes of Antioch and Tripoli 

* Regesta, Nos. 1251, 1263-4, 1269, 1-288, 1289, 1290, 1294, 1295, 
1298-9, 1303, I325- 



THE TARTARS. 383 



had yielded before March of that year ; but Tyre and 
Acre held out, and the castles of the Templars, the 
Hospitallers, and the Teutonic knights. " Help was 
sorely needed," the Legate wrote, for the Tartar prince 
threatened the Christians "in a letter full of blasphemies." 
It was somewhat humiliating to the Papal Court that 
so little could be expected from an Europe torn with 
wars of Guelphs and Ghibelines, and that all the Pope 
could do was to send Franciscan missionaries, hoping 
to soften the hearts of Tartar conquerors. The Military 
Orders were led by men of experience, who knew the 
East, and who for a century had counselled peace with 
Egypt ; but their advice was neglected by popes who 
continued to believe in the possibility of regaining 
Palestine for Christendom by aid of baptised Mongols 
and Armenians ; and the final result was the loss of even 
that part of the Holy Land which King Richard and St. 
Louis had saved to the Franks. In the end of the year 
1260 A.D. Pope Alexander IV congratulated Hulagu on 
his supposed conversion to the Christian faith, and 
recommended him to see the Patriarch of Jerusalem. 
He had already written, three years earlier, to the 
Turkish Sultan of Iconium, who was said to be about to 
be baptised, and who had received a Pentateuch, with 
the Prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, the Epistles of 
St. Paul, and the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. John ; 
but the Turks were weak, and not likely to aid the 
Franks, preferring to raid on the now ruined province 
of Antioch whenever they found a fitting chance. In 
1258 the Pope also besought the Legate to make peace 



384 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

between the Pisans, Genoese, and Venetians, and to obtain 
satisfaction for injury done to the brethren of St. Mary 
of Jehoshaphat. These well-meaning attempts led to 
little result, but the popes remained infatuated with a 
belief in their power of stemming the great movements 
of the time, by moral forces, while more and more 
the Christian influence waned, leaving the Moslems 
of Egypt to fight out the quarrel for Syria with the 
Mongols. 

The common danger served, however, to bind the 
three great Military Orders together ; and the three 
Masters signed an agreement, on the 9th of October, 
1258 A. P., concerning their various quarrels in Palestine, 
Cyprus, and Armenia, and promised peace and concord 
in future. The Legate was obliged, two years later, to 
counsel that pilgrims especially Frisian women should 
not be endangered by being allowed to come~to the 
Holy Land. A messenger of the Templars was sent to 
Henry III in England, to give news of Hulagu's con- 
quests, and travelled with the utmost speed, reaching 
London from Acre in thirteen weeks. He gave a 
terrible account of the Mongols, whose women, he said, 
fought like men, being expert with the bow. The 
Venetians, Pisans, and Genoese were meantime dis- 
puting as to their property and towers in Acre, and 
refused to obey the Legate's decisions. In the' following 
year the Master of the Temple sent messengers to Spain, 
France, and Germany, to relate the peril of the Chris- 
tians, complaining of the heavy losses of the Order, and 
of the non-arrival of Genoese merchants on whom he 



THE TARTARS, 385 



depended. It was during these troubles that the 
Seigneur of Sidon sold most of his lands to the Teu- 
tonic Order. The Templars also complained that the 
Prince of Antioch, the King of Armenia, and the " King 
of Russia," were leagued with the Tartars. In 1263 
A.D. a further appeal was sent to Henry III, by the 
Masters of the three Orders, the Legate, and the Senes- 
chal of the kingdom, to say that, having broken the 
truce, Bibars was occupying all the country, while 
advancing on the Tartars, and that little remained 
beyond the port of Acre. But Henry III was unable 
to send help : all his power was wanted at home in the 
war with his barons. The battle of Evesham was not 
fought till two years later, and it was seven before any 
help came from England. Meanwhile the ruin of the 
Latins was well-nigh completed by the cruel ravages of 
Bibars. 



386 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE Loss OF ACRE. 

WHEN El Muaddem fell under the memluks' knives in 
sight of St. Louis in 1250 A.D., a sultana named Shejr ed 
Dur, widow of his nephew Melek es Saleh Nejm ed Din 
son of Melek el Kamil had a young son the heir to 
the throne. Shejr ed Dur married a Turkoman emir 
named Ezz-ed-Din Aibek, and they became together 
the guardians of the young sultan, who was called 
Melek el Mansur Khalil. But the new Turkoman 
regent proved cruel and ambitious. His murder of the 
Emir Faris ed Din was followed by a demand for the 
hand of a princess of Mosul, and this roused the 
jealousy of Shejr ed Dur, through whose favour he had 
become powerful. She sent for a certain emir, Seif ed 
Din, who slew the Aibek in her presence ; but she was 
not allowed to reign alone, and was murdered in turn, 
and a son of the Aibek proclaimed sultan. Kutuz 
the bravest of the Egyptian emirs and Bibars, who 
had defended Egypt against St. Louis, were thus the 
military rivals to whom the nation looked for a future 
leader, and the latter was unhindered by any scruples in 
pursuit of his ambition. He stabbed Kutuz while 



THE LOSS OF ACRE. 387 

hunting, and the army proclaimed him sultan in 1260, 
when the possibility of a new advance of Hulagu made 
such a soldier necessary for the safety of Egypt He 
climbed to power by very different means to those 
which Saladin had used, and his career was disgraced 
by violence and cruelty. But his success was constant 
and justified the proud titles which accompany his 
name on the inscriptions carved on conquered castles of 
the Franks " father of victory and pillar of the faith." 
The state of Europe favoured his career, for civil war 
raged in England and in Germany, and Italy was 
ruined by the quarrel with the Pope. Eudes of Nevers 
and a few other knights took the cross, but the defence 
of the Holy Land was mainly left to the three great 
Orders. The Normans in Constantinople were weak 
and poor, obliged to raise money by selling relics, and 
to enter into treaty with Michael Palseologus, who took 
Constantinople while the Latin army was away on the 
shores of the Black Sea. In 1262 Baldwin fled, and 
Michael became emperor in Byzantium, restoring a 
Greek dominion which lasted for nearly two centuries.* 
In the same year Bibars attacked the Christian 
possessions in Palestine, ravaging Antioch, and burning 
the church at Nazareth. In 1255 the strong position of 
Mount Tabor had been given to the Hospitallers, after 
the destruction of the monasteries by the Saracensf in 
order that they might build a fortress on the summit 

* The negotiations of Michael Palceolcgus with the Pope for union of 
the Churches failed, and seem to have had a political object in protecting 
him against Charles of Anjou (see Gibbon^ Ch. Ixii.) 

t Re^esta, No. 1230. 



388 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

within the ten years of truce with the Moslems. In 
1263 Bibars laid waste the surrounding villages, includ- 
ing Nain, and destroyed this fortress.* He also threat- 
ened Acre ; and suspicions arose that he was secretly 
allied to the Genoese and to the Seigneur of Tyre. 

In 1265 the Archbishop of Tyre endeavoured to make 
peace between the Venetians, Genoese, and Pisans in 
face of these new dangers,! and the Christians asked aid 
of the Tartars to defend Caesarea against Bibars ; but 
the city fell to the Moslems, and Arsuf was also taken 
after forty days' siege. Alphonso of Arragon and the 
King of Armenia sent envoys to the conqueror, who 
had gone on pilgrimage to the mosque at Jerusalem. 
The spirit of Islam was roused by his success, and by 
the strict austerity of his manners : for he forbade the 
drinking of wine in his army, which attacked Tyre and 
Tripoli and Acre. Safed, one of the strongest of the 
remaining castles, was besieged, and its walls breached. 
All the prisoners taken were slain, except one Templar 
who turned renegade, and one Hospitaller sent to bear 
the news to Acre.J In the following year the Holy 
War was preached, and a tax laid on Moslems for its 
purposes. Jaffa was surprised, Kerak was subdued, and 
the army of Bibars marched on Tripoli. 

In I26^ A.D. we find the Christians expecting the 
immediate loss of Tripoli, and the Patriarch of Jerusa- 
lem begging the Templars to send money to Acre for 

* Robinson, Bib. Res.> II, p. 360. 

t J\egesta, No. 1341. 

J Belfort, held by the Templars since 1240, was lest in 1268 A.D. 

liegesta, Nos. 1346, 1347, 1348, 1354, 1357, 1363. 



THE LOSS OF ACRE* 389 

the defence of the Holy Land, asking them to promote 
peace between the Venetians and Genoese, to prevent 
the poor and feeble from coming out as pilgrims, and 
hoping for a new Crusade from Europe. In May he 
wrote again to describe the desolation wrought by 
Bibars in the plain of Acre, the death of John of 
Brienne, and the attack on Safed, asking help from the 
three Orders. In August Pope Clement IV wrote to 
Abagha the Tartar prince to praise him for a sup- 
posed conversion, and to announce that the kings of 
France and Navarre were taking the cross, and that 
help was to be sent to Jerusalem. But the hopes of the 
Christians in the East were sinking, and Philip de Mont- 
fort, lord of Tyre, wrote, in April, 1268, to St. Louis, 
asking him to receive his son and heir as a vassal for 
fiefs in France. The answer, which was favourable, was 
not written till December. 

The Christians now began to desert Antioch, which 
Bibars besieged and took on the iSth of May, 1268 A.D. 
Seventeen thousand Christians are said to have been 
slain, and those who remained were sold as slaves. 
The priests and monks were murdered^ the churches 
were destroyed. Bibars himself wrote to Boemund VI, 
Prince of Antioch, in bitter and scornful language, to 
announce his victory, and that he had ruined the 
churches of St. Paul and St. Cosmas, had slain all the 
citizens, and had taken the neighbouring towns Shakif 
Talmis and Shakif Kefr Deina.* The news sped to 
France, and St. Louis appeared in the Parliament at 
* Regesta> No. 1358. 



390 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

the Louvre bearing the crown of thorns ; but his policy, 
as we 'have seen, was to draw off the invaders by an 
attack on Tunis, and the French army never again 
appeared in Palestine. The Tartar Abagha was fighting 
the Turks in Asia Minor, and a proposed treaty with 
the Venetians and Genoese who were to send a fleet of 
fifteen galleys and fifteen transports for a year came 
to nothing. Money failed, and the Pope imposed a 
tithe for three years; but meanwhile Bibars strength- 
ened his position by further conquests. 

At last appeared Prince Edward of England, the son 
of Henry III, whose courage and warlike ability had 
been show^n at Evesham, and who had restored his 
father to the throne by the defeat of Simon de Montfort. 
He was the last Crusader ; but his presence in England 
was sorely needed, for Henry was old and feeble, and 
the land was full of rioters and robbers. On the 4th 
May, 1270 A.D., he set sail at Portsmouth, to join St. 
Louis in Tunis. James of Arragon had conquered the 
Moors, and gathered forces in Castille, Catalonia, and 
Portugal. He also set out, though the Pope regarded 
him with little favour ; but he was wrecked off Langue- 
doc, and only a few Arragonese reached Acre. Charles 
of Anjou was hindered by revolts in Naples and Sicily, 
after the execution of Conradin ; and when Prince 
Edward reached Tunis he found St. Louis already dead, 
and a treaty effected. Disappointed on every side, he 
still went on to the East, but had with him only three 
hundred knights and five hundred Frisians, his little 
host altogether numbering not more than twelve hun- 



THE LOSS OF ACRE. 391 

dred fighting men. The Templars, Hospitallers, and 
Teutonic knights joined his force ; but the army did not 
amount to more than 7,000 at most, even including five 
hundred Papal troops sent in Italian ships. It was, 
however, strong enough to drive back Bibars from 
Acre, and to march on Nazareth, which was pillaged, 
and all the Moslems found there slain.* 

Bibars did not scruple to use the dagger of the 
Assassin against this last defender of the Holy Land, 
and the attempt was made at Acre in June, 1272 ; but 
the murderous Anzazim, sent by the Old Man of the 
Mountain, failed : for Prince Edward wrested the knife 
from his hand, after being wounded in the arm, and 
Latimer, an English knight, slew the Assassin. The 
prince was then thirty-five years of age, and at the early 
age of seventeen had married his first wife, Eleanor of 
Castile. She reached Palestine with him, in the spring 
of 1271 A.D., and had witnessed his victory over Bibars 
near Nazareth, wintering with him in Cyprus, and 
returning to Acre on the following year. To her devo- 
tion he owed a life destined to last for another thirty- 
five years : for the Assassin's dagger was poisoned, and 
Eleanor sucked the poison from the wound. " For when," 
says Speed, " no medicine could extract the poison, she 
did it with her tongue, licking daily, while her husband 
slept, his rankling wounds, whereby they perfectly 
closed, yet she herself received no hurt ; so soveraigne a 



* Other reconnaissances were made to St. George (El Khtidr) east of 
Acre, and even as far south as Kakun in the plains of Ccesarea beyond 
Chateau Peleiin. 



392 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

medicine is a wife's tongue, anointed with the virtue of 
lovely affection."* 

The English army was wasted with sickness, and 
without hope of aid from Europe ; and Prince Edward 
concluded a truce with Bibars for ten years, ten months, 
and ten days the last peaceful period enjoyed by 
Christians in Syria. On his way home he heard at 
Messina, in Sicily, of the death of his eldest son 
John, and of his father's death which happened on the 
i6th of November, 1272. He did not, however, reach 
England till the 2nd May, 1274, and his whole energies 
were occupied henceforth by the conquest of Wales, and 
the war in Scotland ; thus Palestine was left without 
any further hope of aid from Europe ; yet the king 
continued to take interest in the affairs of the East down 
to the last days of Christian resistance. 

Even while opposing Edward Bibars gained further 
successes. In April, 1271, as the English were approach- 
ing Palestine, he wrote to the Master of the Hospitalf 
to say that Krak the chief fortress of the Order east of 
Tripoli had fallen ; and the breach he made in its 
walls still remains, built up with smaller masonry 
when the castle was restored as a Moslem stronghold. 
Upon its rampart an ornate Arab text records this 
restoration as follows : 

" In the name of God merciful and pitying, the repair 
of this castle has been ordered in the reign of our 

* The genuineness of this story is of course doubted by modern writers, 
though why it should have been invented is not clear, 
t Regesta, No. 1374. 
Rey, Colonies Franques, p. 1 28. 



THE LOSS OF ACRE. 393 

master the Sultan, the conquering king, the wise, the 
just, the champion of the Holy War, the pious, the 
defender of frontiers, the victorious, the pillar of the 
world and of the faith, the father of victory Bibars." 

In May of the same year, 1271, Bibars also wrote once 
more to Boemund, Count of Tripoli, boasting that he had 
taken Akkar, the strong fortress in the mountains south- 
east of that city.* Abagha, the Tartar, wrote to Prince 
Edward on the 4th of September, proposing alliance 
against the Moslems, and acknowledging the English 
envoy John le Parker ; but the treaty with Bibars put an 
end to these schemes. In the year after King Edward's 
accession the Master of the Hospital wrote to the Count 
of Flanders, to describe the misery of the Holy Land, 
and the lack of money that which the new King of 
France had sent by order of the Pope being expended. 
In 1274 A.D. Pope Gregory X assembled a Council at 
Lyons, at which the Patriarchs of Jerusalem and Con- 
stantinople were present, with a thousand archbishops and 
bishops. Envoys were sent by the Emperors of East 
and West, by the Kings of France and of Cyprus, and 
by the Tartars, some of whom are said to have been 
baptised by the Pope. A tithe was ordered, to defray 
expenses in Palestine during the ten years' truce ; for 
now the loss ef territory began to tell on the resources 
of the barons, and on the funds of the Military Orders. 

In the year that followed many other letters were 
exchanged,! and many sales of property were effected. 



* Regesta, No. 1377, 1380, 1383, 1387. 

t Ditto, Nos. 1401-1405, 1407, 1409, 1423. 



2 D 



394 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

King Edward I wrote on the 26th of January to Abagha, 
who professed a desire to be baptised, asking him to 
defend the Christians, but saying that nothing was 
settled as to his own return to Palestine. Pope 
Gregory X confirmed an alliance between the three 
Military Orders at Lyons, on the I3th of March. Hugh 
Revel, Master of the Hospital, wrote on the 3Oth of 
September to Edward, to say the ten years' truce with 
the Christians still held, but that war had broken out 
between Bibars and the Tartars ; two days later the 
Master of the Templars in 'Acre reported that money 
was much needed by the Order, for the fortification of 
the castles and towns still held, and entreating the king 
to order a " general passage " of troops from the West, 
on account of the threatening dangers. The Patriarch 
of Jerusalem, and the Bishop of Bethlehem, and Balian, 
the Constable of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, wrote to 
Rudolph, Emperor of Germany, for aid, because the 
Christians were weak, and the Saracens wasting Armenia. 
The King of Bohemia wrote to Bibars about the same 
time on a very different subject. He sent (as did other 
Christian princes) a friendly message, and presents of 
beaver fur, asking for one of the fingers of St. Catherine 
of Mount Sinai, or for a little of the oil which was 
said to distil from her bones, in the coffin shewn in the 
monastery. In November, 1276, John Vassal and James 
Vassal brought messages from Abagha, the Tartar, to 
the Kings of Sicily and of England and to the Pope, 
and these envoys appeared in London. In 1278, on the 
1st of April, Pope Nicholas III sent Franciscan monks 



THE LOSS OF ACRE. 395 

in return to Abagha, reminding him of his promise 
to help, should a new army arrive from Europe, and 
to receive baptism. But no such army ever again set 
out for the East. 

In 1275 A.D. Humbert of Romanis, general of the 
Preaching Friars, endeavoured to stir up again the 
ancient spirit. He lamented the sins of the Western 
Christians, their fear of toil and danger, their dislike of 
leaving home, their pleading of family ties, their evil 
language and bad example, their lack of hope, and the 
coldness of their faith. But the Crusader spirit was dead 
in Europe, and Palestine was left to its fate. Bibars 
observed his truce, and was busy fighting in Nubia, and 
in Armenia ; and so active were his movements that 
often when supposed to be in his palace in Cairo he 
suddenly appeared in Damascus or Aleppo. After 
having defeated the Tartars in the North, he laid heavy 
taxes on Damascus, where he died in 1277 A.D. He 
was hated and feared in the later years of his severe and 
cruel rule. He was crafty, tyrannical, and pitiless, and 
is said to have slain two hundred and twenty-four emirs. 
Kelaun, one of the memluks or slave guards of the 
sultans, usurped the throne of Egypt two years later, 
and carried on the war against the Tartars. He is said 
to have had spies in various parts of Europe, and had 
an ambassador at Seville. His difficulty in reilucirg 
the Christian seaports lay in having no fleet, and this 
saved the remainder of the Christian possessions for the 
whole period of his reign. 

There were about this time three claimants for the 

2 D 2 



39& THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

throne of Jerusalem, the first being Mary of Antioch, 
descended from King Amaury's daughter Isabel, the 
second her nephew the King of Cyprus, and the third 
Charles of Anjou,* who bought the title of Mary for the 
sum of four thousand livres Tournois, payable yearly. 
He also married, on the 2Oth of January, 1278, Margaret, 
L granddaughter of John of Brienne. The sum agreed 
*vas, however, not duly paid, at least for four years 
after 1285 A.D. 

In 1276 Bibars gained a victory over Abagha's 
brother at Emesa (La Chamelle) ; but on the death 
of Bibars the Tartars, the Armenians, and the Geor- 
gians advanced again from the North. Kelaun met 
them at Emesa, and the result, though not apparently 
-decisive, led to the retreat of the invaders in 1280 A.D. 
.Several letters exist which refer to these first years of 
JCelaun's reign, and to the interest which King Edward 
tontinued to take in Palestine.! 

On the 23rd July, 1278, Pope Nicholas III wrote a 
long letter to the Bishops of Sidon and Beirut, as to 
injuries sustained by the Bishop of Tripoli. A riot 
appears to have occurred against this ecclesiastic, led 
by the Bishop of Tortosa, and twelve Templars were 
killed. Boemund, Count of Tripoli, took the part of the 
assailants, and appears to have given- the Templars' 
Hospice to the Saracens, for which cause the Bishop of 
Tortosa was summoned to Rome. The dispute, however, 
was settled through the influence of the Master of the 

* Jfigfsta, Ncs. 1411, 1422, 1486. 

t Ditto, Ncs. 1424-5, 1432, 1436, 1442, 1445, 1446, 1448. 



THE LOSS OF ACRE. 397 

Hospital.* King Edward was especially favourable to 
the latter Order, and an account of the war between the 
Templars and Boemund was sent to him, by one of the 
brethren from Acre, in September, 1279, when it was 
pointed out that the quarrels of the Saracens among 
themselves on the death of Bibars gave a good 
opportunity for active attack. The vicar of the Patriarch 
of Jerusalem wrote, in the autumn of 1286, to report 
famine and locust swarms, and fearing that the truce 
with the Saracens would be broken next spring : an offer 
of aid had then been received from the Tartars. In the 
following autumn the Master of the Hospital wrote again 
to King Edward, to say the Tartars were coming, and 
that the fortress of Margat was well provided ; but they 
were again defeated, as the Master announced next 
spring. 

Another correspondent of Edward's was Sir Joseph 
de Cancy, who has been already noticed as treasurer of 
the Hospital an Englishman from Yorkshire. He had 
been in Palestine for thirty-four yearsf at Acre, and 
seven extant agreements bear his signature. On the 
3 ist May, 1281, he wrote to describe the battle of 
Emesa on the 3<Dth of the preceding October,! and King 
Edward's reply was dated the 2Oth of May in the next 
year. Sir Joseph reported that neither the Hospitallers, 
nor Boemund VII of Antioch, nor the King of Cyprus 

* The dispute was an old one. The Pisans and Genoese fought at Acre 
in 1249. The Venetians, Pisans, and Templars fought the Genoese and 
the Hospitalleis from 1258 to 1260. 

t Regesta, Nos. 1164, 1199. % Pal. Pilgrim Text Society, 1888. 

The advance of the Tartars had been stemmed by their defeat in 1260 at 
Ain Talut by Sultan Kutuz, but they had now recovered. 



398 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

(Hugh III) had been able, as intended, to join the 
invaders : for Kelaun held the road by which the 
Christians might have advanced from Tripoli on Emesa, 
and the army from Cyprus had not arrived. The forces 
of Kelaun are stated to have been fifty thousand horse 
in three battalions, opposed by forty thousand in three 
Tartar divisions, including one thousand Georgians and 
an Armenian contingent, with three thousand Turks from 
Asia Minor. The Armenians attacked from the west, and 
repulsed the Moslems ; and the battle raged till night- 
fall, resulting in a Tartar victoiy ; but the disorderly 
hordes fell upon the spoil, and Kelaun forced them to 
withdraw. The darkness closed in without either side 
having secured a final decision, and the Tartars and 
Armenians retreated, losing many men and horses on 
the march. Abagha himself was marching further east 
through the desert to Damascus, but appears to have 
been also obliged to retire. Kelaun rallied his army at 
the Lake of Kadesh, south of Emesa, where the Tem- 
plars went to spy out his forces, under pretext of giving 
presents. His losses appear to have been also heavy, 
and he returned to Egypt, levying taxes in Syria, and 
preparing for further expeditions. Great consternation 
existed among the Moslems of Hamah and Emesa, who 
fled, expecting a further Tartar inroad, and fifteen emirs 
who deserted in the battle were put to death. The 
Turkomans took this occasion to harry Armenia, and 
the Hospitallers sent one hundred horsemen, fifty 
knights, and fifty Turkopoles, to aid the king. Pales- 
tine itself was desolated by lack of rain and pestilence, 



THE LOSS OF ACRE. 399 

and provisions from Sicily were denied. Sir Joseph 
concludes : 

" And know, Sire, the Holy Land was never so easy 
of conquest as now, with able generals and store of food : 
yet never have we seen so few soldiers, or so little good 
counsel in it. May your worthy and royal Majesty 
flourish for all time, by increase of good for better. And 
would God, Sire, that this might be done by yourself, 
for it would be accomplished without fail if God would 
give you the desire of coming here. And this is the 
belief of all dwellers in the Holy Land, both great and 
small, that by you, with the help of God, shall the Holy 
Land be conquered, and brought into the hands of Holy 
Christendom." 

King Edward's reply " to his dearest in Christ, and 
faithful secretary, brother Joseph de Chauncy," gave no 
hope of such assistance. " For the rest," he wrote, " we 
have received with cheerful hand your New Year's gift 
of jewels, which you have sent to us to wit, two 
Circassian saddles, and two saddle cloths ; and two 
gerfalcon's hoods, and four falcon's hoods, for which we 
return you our abundant thanks. Wishing you to know 
that we have not considered these presents as small, 
because we have weighed the goodwill of the giver 
more than the gifts themselves in this case. Nor indeed 
do we at present want any more hoods, as by reason of 
arduous matters of our kingdom, which intimately 
concern us, we do not as yet wish to keep more falcons 
than we already have . . . and because we much 
wish that you should be near us, for our solace and 



400 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

convenience, we will and require you that you hasten 
your arrival in England, by the best and quickest means 
you can. . . . Given at Wocester on the 2Oth of 
May in the tenth year of our reign." 

The " arduous matters of our kingdom " so noticed 
related to Wales, for in the same year Llewellyn was 
overthrown on the nth of December, and the first 
Prince of Wales the infant Edward who could speak 
no English was presented to the Welshmen. The 
wars in Scotland began four years later, and continued 
till long after the fall of Acre. After such discourage- 
ment the Military Orders made peace with Kelaun,*and 
the King of Armenia swore, by the Trinity, the Cross, 
and the Gospels, to become the vassal of Egypt, under 
pain of journeying thirty times barefooted and bare- 
headed to Jerusalem, if he failed of his word. Margat 
had already been taken by assault, and the limits of the 
Christian possessions dwindled year by year. 

The agreement of the Templars stipulated that a truce 
often years and ten months should begin on the I5th of 
April, 1282, and they surrendered to the Egyptians all 
Syria, and the mountain of the Assassins thirty-seven 
" cantons " in all, conquered by Bibars, including 
Latakia, Area, Margat, and Chateau Blanche. The 
limit of Syrian Christendom on the north was thus 
marked by the town of Tripoli, and the Templars 
promised to build no new castles. Another agreement 
was made by Kelaun, on the 3rd of June, with the 
Princes of Acre, Sidon, and Chateau Pelerin which 

* Regesta, Nos. 1447, 1450. 



THE LOSS OF ACRE. 401 

latter castle now marked the southern border of the 
small strip between Carmel and Tripoli, which was all 
that Bibars had left to Christendom. The church of 
Nazareth was allowed to remain, with six houses for 
clerics and pilgrims, but the border was drawn at Cay- 
mont, Haramis, and Mansurah at the east end of the 
Carmel ridge, and the document acknowledges the loss 
of all save seventy-three " cantons " round Acre, Haifa, 
and Carmel, and fifteen near Sidon. The Christians 
in this case also promised not to rebuild any ancient 
fortress, or make any new one. Three years later 
Kelaun called on the Count of Tripoli to dismantle 
Marakieh a castle on an island north of Tortosa,* and 
the chatelain, to the horror of all, stabbed his son for 
wishing to receive lands in exchange. This castle was 
abandoned and demolished, leaving Tripoli defenceless 
on the north. 

The breathing time was spent in further correspon- 
dence with the West, and with the Tartars.f A letter 
was addressed in 1285 by Argun, Khan of the Mongols, 
to Pope Honorius IV, and to the Kings of France and 
Sicily dated according to the Tartar cycle of years 
already noticed which proclaimed the khan's friend- 
ship for Christians, and invited a further alliance against 
Egypt, which was to be conquered by the united armies 
of Europe and of the further East. But almost at the 
same time the King of Armenia (Leo III) made a ten 
years' truce with Kelaun, in which all the towns up to 

* Marakieh was built by the Hospitallers in 1260. 
t Regesta, Nos. 1456, 1457, 1458, 1460, 1470. 



402 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

the Taurus are mentioned as belonging to the latter. 
On the 1 8th of July also Margaret, the lady of Tyre, 
made a similar ten years' agreement, in which the 
boundary between the Moslem and the Christian lands 
is described in detail. The exact line can be drawn on 
the map from this document, coinciding nearly with the 
ancient border of the fief of Tyre, while further north 
the Lebanon remained in the hands of the Christians as 
far as Tripoli, but the plains of Baalbek and the castle 
of Belfort were in the country held by Kelaun. The 
line ran from Jedeidah west of Belfort to Maron, which 
was on the border, and garrisoned by both parties. 
Toron was given up to Egypt, and Kanah was also on 
their side of the line. Thence the border ran south to 
Beit Lif; and Montfort, the castle of the Teutonic 
knights, was also held by the Egyptians. The west 
slopes of the Nazareth hills formed the limit further 
south, leaving only a strip of plain about eight miles 
east of Acre. Carmel remained Christian, and Chateau 
Pelerin ; so that a strong base still existed, if any 
forces could have been mustered in Europe to land at 
Acre the key of Syria. 

These treaties did not, however, include any men- 
tion of the County of Tripoli. The Templar castle of 
Margat was demolished on the 25th of May, 1285, and 
in 1287 Kelaun besieged Latakia, when an earthquake 
destroyed the tower of the Pisans and the lighthouse. 
After the fall of this town the Egyptians advanced on 
Tripoli itself, and though Boemund had offered sub- 
mission the town was attacked. The Templars, and 



THE LOSS OF ACRE. 403 

the Seigneur of Gebal to the south, had plotted together 
to possess themselves of this important port, but the 
agreement failed. Boemund died soon after, and his 
mother and sister disputed the succession. Kelaun set 
up seventeen siege machines against the walls ; and after 
thirty-five days of fighting, mining, and Greek fire 
throwing, the city fell. Seven thousand Christians were 
slain, women and children were taken for slaves, Tripoli 
was demolished, and its famous silk industry was ruined. 
The time had long gone by since it had been possible to 
settle the Eastern question by making peace with Egypt. 
The fair terms offered by Melek el Kamil, and accepted 
by Frederic II, had been rejected ; and for half a 
century the Papal policy had prevailed against the 
advice of Templars and Hospitallers and against the 
opinion of men like Rubruquis and St. Louis. The talk 
was still of converting Tartars, and baptising khans ; 
though two things must ere now have become clear 
first, that the Tartars were insincere, and, secondly, that 
they were not as. strong as the Moslems. The loss of 
Palestine may mainly be traced to the prejudice of 
the Popes, and to their fatal quarrel with the empire. 
In 1288 we still find the Nestorians sending news 
of supposed conversions to Rome, and, as already 
explained, Nicholas IV continued to correspond with 
Argun down to the fall of Acre. In 1289 he was still 
exhorting Haithon II of Armenia, to obedience and 
perseverance, by the Minorite brethren.* 

On the 22nd of August, 1289, the Master of the 

* Regesta, Nos. 1477, 1490, 1493-1499. 



404 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Hospital wrote from Acre to describe the heavy losses 
of the Order in the siege of Tripoli ; and on the gth of 
September the Pope sent four thousand livres Tournois 
towards the redemption of captives, the making of war- 
like machines, and the repair of the walls and ditches of 
Acre. On the I3th of the same month he wrote again 
to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, to say he had ordered 
twenty galleys to be armed for use in the Holy Land ; 
and sent sixteen thousand livres left by the will of his 
predecessor Adrian V. On the 3Oth- of September he 
wrote to Edward I, to say that Argun, the Tartar em- 
peror, had promised to accept the Christian faith, and 
to aid in recovering Palestine for Christendom ; but in 
October of the same year the Legate wrote from Acre, 
to the abbot of St. Mary of Jehoshaphat, to say that 
since the fall of Tripoli the abbey had nothing to rely 
on but its possessions in Calabria. The Greeks had long 
since obtained possession of the original church, which 
in the twelfth century had owned so many villages in 
Palestine. 

Jerusalem itself would now have been hardly recog- 
nised by the Christians, few of whom had seen it since 
the time of Frederic II. New chapels had arisen round 
the Templum Domini, which had been in Moslem hands 
since the days of Saladin. In 1213 A.D. cloisters had 
been built on the west side of the great enclosure, and 
in 1256 a porch had been added to the Templars' 
church on the south the Templum Salomonis. Kelaun 
himself appears to have erected the minaret on the rock 
at the north-west angle of the enclosure ; and an inscrip- 



THE LOSS OF ACRE. 405 

tion bearing his name records the rebuilding of the outer 

o -* 

wall on the south-east. The Hospice of the Templars, 
outside the Damascus Gate, built to receive pilgrims 
about the time of Saladin, was falling in ruins : the 
Church of St. Lazarus, outside the wall further west, 
was destroyed, and only a few Franciscans held on, amid 
many dangers, to their religious duties in Jerusalem. 
The thoughts of Europe were intent, not on the recovery 
of the Holy City, but on the impending fate of Acre. 

After the fall of Tripoli attempts were made to patch 
up another truce for two years, two months, and two days. 
The Legate who was the titular Patriarch of Jerusalem 
was violently opposed to this treaty, and insulted the 
Moslem merchants, and threatened to excommunicate 
the Military Orders when they offered reparation for the 
injury. Yet in such concessions lay the only hope of 
peace. James of Sicily had made a pact with Kelaun, 
and so had the Genoese. The Pope allowed the Augus- 
tine brothers to sell their property in Acre to the Hos- 
pital ; but on the i$th of October, 1290, he wrote to 
recommend a French captain, and to exhort the knights 
of Syria to vigilance. He was still commending Tartar 
envoys to Edward I of England.* 

The final quarrel arose no doubt out of the treatment 
of the Moslems by the Legate. It was reported that a 
Christian woman had been surprised by her husband, 
with a Moslem lover, in the gardens of Acre. The report 
roused popular fury, and a general massacre of Moslems 
followed. The ten years' truce made by the Templars had 
* Regesta, Nos. 1502, 1504, 1505, 1506, 1507. 



406 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

not yet expired, but Kelaun had died, and, as Joynville 
tells us, all such agreements became null unless renewed 
by the successor of a sultan. Melek el Ashraf,* Kelaun's 
successor, wrote in March, 1291, to the Master of the 
Temple, to say that he would avenge the murder of 
the Saracens by the hirelings of the Pope, and would 
come forthwith against the city. Kelaun had com- 
manded that his body should not be buried till Acre 
was taken, and his son hastened to obey, appearing 
before the city with a mighty force on the 5th of April. 
On the 1 8th of May the town was stormed, and on the 
25th the new sultan sent the news to Haithon II of 
Armenia demanding tribute. Tyre opened its gates 
after the loss of Acre, and Tortosa, Beirut, and Sidon 
were taken. f Haithon II sent the heavy news to 
Edward of England before the I5th of June. The 
Pope was still writing to the Tartars, who were still 
promising to be baptised, while in Cairo, Damascus, 
Aleppo, Edessa, and Iconium the Christian churches 
were being destroyed, and on Carmel all the hermits 
had been massacred, with those in the caves of Lebanon 
and Judea, and in the monastery of Sinai. Few in- 
deed were the survivors who fled to Europe after this 
terrible catastrophe, when the three Military Orders, 
unaided from without, strove manfully to retain the last 

* Regesta, No. 1508. 

t Beirut, lost on the 6th August, 1187, had been regained by Amaury II 
of Cyprus in 1197, and fell finally about the end of July, 1291. Tortosa, 
taken by Saladin in 1188, fell on 3rd August, 1291. Sidon was taken 
by Saladin in 1187, and retaken from Melek el Adel in 1197, retaken by 
Saracens in 1249, and recovered in 1253, when St. Louis rebuilt it. The 
Templars bought it in 1260, but abandoned it in 1291 after the fall of 
Acre and the surrender of Tyre. 



THE LOSS OF ACRE. 407 

foothold of the Christians in the East. The Pope, 
indeed, sent one thousand six hundred Italians, in 
twenty Venetian galleys, to aid the town, but the 
troops, arriving in 1290 A.D., were found to be mere 
vagabonds, who, being unpaid, pillaged Christians and 
Moslems alike. The force which finally gathered at 
Acre included only nine hundred knights, and eighteen 
thousand foot soldiers, of whom five hundred came 
from Cyprus. The force sent by Kelaun, just before his 
death, was led by seven emirs, each of whom had four 
thousand horse and twenty thousand foot, according to 
the chroniclers. With such proportions, though the 
Egyptians had no fleet, the fate of the city was certain. 

St. Jean D'Acre as it was called, from the Knigh'.s 
Hospitallers' church, was, at the time of its capture, a 
rich and considerable city. In it were still to be seen 
the palaces of the kings of Jerusalem, and of the 
princes of Galilee and Antioch, with houses of the 
lieutenants of the kings of France and Cyprus, of the 
great barons of Caesarea, Tripoli, and Jaffa, of the 
seigneurs of Beirut, Tyre, Sidon, and Tiberias. Even 
its churches were fortified. The men of Naples and 
Cyprus, of France and England, the Italian traders, and 
even the Tartars, had their streets and quarters in the 
city. The Guelph and Ghibeline factions quarrelled 
often within its walls, and bloody fights took place at 
times between Venetians and Genoese. It was the 
home of the Legate, and the last abode of the three 
great Military Orders. 

The ancient town, built by Phoenician traders some 



4o8 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

twenty centuries before the Christian era, and noticed 
in Egyptian tablets of the reign of Amenophis III, 
stood on a rocky reef jutting out at the north end of 
the shallow bay of Carmel. To the south the green 
malarious gardens, full of palms and fruit trees, hid the 
course of the Belus, which flows into the Mediterranean 
south of the port. Fertile plains stretched northwards 
from the walls to the Ladder of Tyre : on the south were 
the broad sands, on which the quiet waves were lapping 
in the spring-time ; and behind them rose the sand dunes, 
covered with dry grasses, on the edge of the marshy 
plains where Saladin had camped. The long dark 
chain of the Galilean hills rose eastwards to Safed, and 
behind them was the snow-streaked dome of Hermon. 
As the sun sinks down in the West and the steel blue 
shadows creep over the plain, and up the Galilean slopes, 
a deep pink flush enflames the upper ridges of those 
rocky mountains, and long after these have sunk into 
darkness it still tinges the Hermon snows, five thousand 
feet higher above the sea. The night was creeping over 
the Christian kingdom, and soon w,ould fall ; for the 
hosts gathered from Syria and Arabia, from beyond 
the Euphrates and from Egypt and the Red Sea shores 
hemmed in the last great fortress of the Latins. 

The twelfth century city was nearly square about 
three-quarters of a mile across but a great suburb of 
triangular shape had now grown up on the north, and 
was known as Mont Musard. A wall divided this 
suburb from the older town, being the old north wall of 
the city ; and on this was the Castle towards the centre. 



LOSS OF ACRE. 409 



On the land side there was a double wall to both town 
and suburb. The little harbour, with its two moles on 
the south, was closed by a chain from the " Tower of Flies,' 
which stood on a rock on the west side of the entrance ; 
and there were two small docks on the west side of the 
harbour. The Hospice of the Knights of St. John was 
in the north-west part of the old town ; and to the south 
of this was the Church of St. Michael. The Templars' 
house was at the end of the promontory, close to the 
sea, in the south-west angle of the city. The Hospice of 
the Teutonic Knights was north of the harbour, near the 
eastern inner wall, and the Patriarchate stood between 
this and the port. The brethren of St. Lazarus had a 
property between the two Hospices of St. John and 
of the Teutonic Order ; and the north-east quarter near 
the Castle was called St. Remain. The Church of St. 
Andrew was west of the port, and east of the Temple : 
traces of its buildings might still be seen in the eighteenth 
century, but hardly anything is now left of the Latin 
buildings that once adorned the town, which in size was 
about equal to Jerusalem. Other churches were named 
from St. Stephen, St. Martin, St. Peter of the Pisans, S!:. 
Bartholomew, St. Laurence, St. George (of the Teutonic 
Order), St. Anne, St. Samuel, Our Lady of Tyre, Our 
Lady of the Knights, Our Lady of Provence, Our Lady 
Latin, St. Sepulchre, and the Holy Spirit. The Church 
of St. John, near the middle of the city, is now a mosque. 
The Hospice of St. John to its north has become the 
Serai. The quarter of the Venetians lay along the har- 
bour, and adjoined that of the Pisans, which extended 

2 E 



410 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

along the south-west part of the town towards the 
Temple. The Genoese were established next, on the 
west sea face. In Mont Musard there were many 
streets and houses and churches. The Butchery of 
the Templars was in this suburb, or northern quarter, 
and a lodge of the Hospital and another of St. Lazarus. 
The churches of St. Thomas a Becket, St. Catherine, of 
the Trinity, the Magdalen, St. Giles, St. Antony, and 
St. Denys, were in Mont Musard ; and the Franciscans 
lived near its eastern wall. 

The famous tower Maledictum was at the salient 
of the outer wall, where that which surrounded Mont 
Musard joined the older fortification. The English 
tower, or king's new tower, was on the north face of the 
salient, west of the Maledictum, and on the east face 
were three other towers, of the Patriarch, the Bridge, 
and St. Nicholas. The inner wall on the east had the 
Blopdy Tower at its north-east corner, and south of 
this the Pilgrim's Tower and the German Tower. The 
quarter within including the Patriarchate was called 
St. Cross. The old north wall of the city had two 
towers east of the castle ; and west of the same were 
four, namely, that at the Gate of Ndtre Dame, and 
going west those at the gate of the Hospital, the new 
gate, and St. Michael's gate. The outer wall of Mont 
Musard had also six towers : that at the sea-end, in 
the extreme north-west angle of the city, being the 
Devil's Tower. This rampart was divided into two 
custodies : that of the Templars to the north, and of the 
Hospitallers to the south. 



LOSS OF ACRE. 411 

Such, according to an ancient extant plan of the city, 
was St. Jean d'Acre on the day of its capture, after a 
siege of forty-three days. The Moslems brought rams 
and catapults against the walls, and made cats of the 
Lebanon cedar, and of oaks from the Nazareth woods. 
Stones, logs, and arrows, were hurled at the defenders 
from numberless machines of war. Twice the Templars 
counselled a parley, and the advice was rejected, cries 
of treason being as usual raised against the wisest of 
the Syrian Orders. The garrison dwindled to half its 
numbers, through disaffection and desertions. After 
a month's siege, on the 4th of May the Saracens 
advanced to the attack, well armed and bearing shields 
of gold. The Gate of St. Antony, in the inner angle, 
west of Maledictum, where the Cyprian troops were 
stationed, was besieged with machines of war. Scaling 
ladders were raised against the wall, but the night fell, 
leaving the Teutonic Order in charge of the point of 
attack. During this night the King of Cyprus, who like 
others despaired of the town, embarked with all his men. 
On the morrow the furious assault continued, and the 
fanatic Hajjis from Mecca lined the ditch with their 
bodies. The merchants and effeminate citizens, who had 
so long lived in luxury in this great port of Italian 
trade, began to tremble for their fate ; but the Templars 
and Hospitallers held out stoutly on the walls, though 
the rams began to breach the ramparts. At length the 
Moslems retreated, baffled by their stubborn courage. 

Many attacks were made during the two weeks that 
followed. At last, on the i8th of May, a desperate 

2 E 2 



412 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

sortie was driven back, and the Masters of Temple 
and Hospital were both wounded. Only a thousand 
men remained at the Gate of St. Antony, and the 
Templars retreated to their strong Hospice close to 
the sea. In the middle of a storm of hail and rain, 
such as sometimes breaks over Palestine in May, the 
Moslems fought their way into the town, but the 
resistance was stubbornly maintained from street to 
street. The city was sacked, and the Christians were 
burned in their churches ; but William of Clermont, 
Master of the Hospital, still remained faithful at his 
post by the Gate of St. Antony, and defended the 
northern quarter from the Hospice of his Order. He 
died, by an arrow, while still on horseback encouraging 
his knights. 

Meantime the legate had embarked on a ship, and 
received the fugitives who crowded to it ; but the storm 
had lashed the waves, and the vessel sank with all on 
board. A terrible scene of misery followed, when noble 
ladies came down to the shore, carrying their jewels, and 
praying the rude boatmen to row them away offering 
all they had, promising even to marry the sailors who 
would save them, if only they could escape to Tyre or 
to Cyprus. Sad descendants were they of the proud 
baronesses who had walked the halls of their palaces in 
cloth of gold, and paced the roofs of the fair houses of 
Acre, in crowns rough with gems. The port was seized, 
and no vessels could go out : the city was in flames : the 
women were ravished in the streets. The great tower of 
the Temple was mined, after several days of parley and 



LOSS OF ACRE. 413 



of resistance, and knights and ladies perished in its ruins, 
as it toppled on the streets below. With the fall of this 
tower fell the Christian kingdom, which Godfrey had 
won two centuries before, when, in the seventh genera- 
tion after him, the knights of the great Orders perished 
in hopeless discharge of duty ; and the feudal system 
was swept away, by the sword of Islam, when the last 
church in Acre had crumbled in its smouldering ashes, 
and the ramparts of the city had been levelled to the 
ground. Within a month of the fall of Acre the cause 
of Islam had triumphed from Edessa to Cairo, and the 
soul of Kelaun could rest in peace. The three years 
struggle which Richard Lion Heart had carried to success 
against Saladin saved Acre for Christendom during a 
century, but the ruin of the Christian cause was symbol- 
ised by the fallen tower, where the bodies of brave knights 
and noble ladies lay crushed and buried under the stones 
of the Temple. 



414 



CONCLUSION. 

LOOKING back over the two centuries of this well marked 
episode in history various things seem to become clear. 
In the first place, the conquest of Palestine was not due 
solely to a sudden religious mania, seizing on popes and 
princes as well as on their subjects. It was an event 
which, like all others, was brought about by various 
causes acting in one direction. The Turkish cruelties 
roused a flame of indignation in Europe, and made 
practicable what had before been preached in vain ; 
but besides this popular wrath, which would perhaps 
have died away had it not been fostered by those in 
power, there were other reasons to be found in Papal 
policy, in Norman ambition, in the restlessness of a 
still savage European population ; and there was the 
trade of the Greeks and of the Amalfi merchants, 
which Turkish barbarism had ruined. Pressure of 
population, and the energy of the Scandinavian race, 
lay at the roots of a movement which has sometimes 
been regarded as due solely to fanaticism. 

In the second place, it is also clear that the Latins 
in the East were not mere freebooters raiding from time 
to time on Asia. Their early leaders were statesmen as 
well as soldiers, who were able to control their own wild 



CONCLUSION. 415 



followers, and to direct their energies to useful ends. 
They were tolerant rulers, whose policy was the true 
policy of justice and equal law : who built up strong 
states in the conquered lands, and stood above the 
prejudices and hatreds of their age. Under their 
direction a mighty commerce was developed, which 
enriched Italy and educated Europe. Under their 
laws the Holy Land enjoyed a measure of peace and 
prosperity greater than any western country enjoyed 
in the same age. When Kelaun carried out the work 
of Saladin to its conclusion the night settled down on 
Asia, and the unhappy Arabs exchanged the tolerant 
rule of the Franks for a bitter Egyptian bondage. It 
was Europe, not Asia, that profited most by the Crusades, 
and by the occupation of Syria. When Christians and 
Moslems came to know each other better friendly rela- 
tions were established, which enabled the traders of the 
West to pursue their calling even after the kingdom was 
lost. For a century all Palestine and Syria were held by 
generations of Aryans who were born and lived and died 
in the East. For another century after that Syria and 
the plains to the south were still ruled by the great 
Orders, whose experience taught them how to deal with 
Oriental vassals. 

In the third place, however, it is clear that the disunion 
of Islam was the reason why the native races were unable 
to resist this strong current from the West. It is remark- 
able that.no great Arab ruler appeared during the cen- 
turies of the Crusades. The sultans and generals of the 
Moslems were Turks, Kurds, or Persians. The Arab 



416 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

khalifs were mere shades religious figure-heads whose 
political influence was null. The Arab race seems to 
have been exhausted in the times of Omar, of El 
Mamun, and of Harun er Rashid ; and the Seljuk 
conquest put an end forever to Arab supremacy. 
When Saladin united Sunnee and Shiah in a common 
cause the native strength became greater than that of 
the Latins ; and the weakening of Europe by internal 
quarrels brought disaster on Syria. The citizens of 
Acre were the victims of the great struggle between 
the Pope and the Emperor. The conquests of Bibars 
were made easy by the hatreds of bianchi and fieri, of 
Ghibelines and Guelphs. 

Fourthly, it is clear that two policies antagonistic to 
each other grew out of the conditions of the race 
struggles of Asia, and out of the division that severed 
the educated and superstitious the liberal and the 
prejudiced in Europe. There was, on the one hand, 
the policy of the empire, which was content to make 
peace with Islam, and to regard Jerusalem as being 
what it really was the Holy City of Christendom, 
which was valued only as a place of pilgrimage, not as 
an earthly possession. There was, on the other hand, 
the policy of the Church, which refused to compromise, 
and which aimed at destroying a religion far too deeply 
impressed on Asiatics for it to be possible that they 
should relinquish the teaching of Muhammad for the 
dogmas of Rome. The popes indeed despaired, in the 
thirteenth century, of either converting Moslems, or of 
bringing Eastern Churches into the fold of what they 



CONCLUSION. 417 



like the Greeks called the Catholic Church. They 
turned their attention to the Tartars, whom they so 
long strove to convert. But Buddhism was as obsti- 
nately opposed as the creed of Islam to that form of 
Christianity which they taught to be the only Truth. 
Regarded from a purely lay stand-point it is clear that 
the Latins took the wrong side in the Asiatic struggle. 
They over-estimated the power of the Tartars, and they 
under-estimated the power of the native Moslem races. 
If the policy of Frederic II had prevailed, the exclusion 
of Christians from Palestine, during the five centuries 
that followed the loss of Acre, might perhaps have been 
avoided, and the lot of Asia would have been happier. 

The history of Palestine and of Western Asia after 
1291 A.D. was a long episode of increasing barbarism. 
Some attempt was made in 1363 to recover what the 
Latins had lost, when the King of Cyprus burnt Tripoli, 
Tortosa, and Latakia, and made a truce with Egypt, 
which gained for him half the rights of trade in Tyre, 
Beirut, Acre, Jerusalem, and Damascus. Christian 
churches were rebuilt in Bethlehem, and Nazareth, and 
over the Holy Sepulchre ; but future troubles were then 
gathering in the rise of the Osmanlis, and in the con- 
quests of Timur. Beiazid Ilderim (1389-1402 A.D.) 
defeated the French and their allies under Sigismund of 
Hungary, and overran Servia and Bulgaria. The new 
Turkish dynasty was not of pure blood, for, as already 
noticed, the sultans of Iconium had long been wont to 
marry Greeks and Georgians, and their heirs were often 
of mixed descent. The vices of Oriental despotism 



418 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

were early observed in these half-bred sultans. Timur, 
a descendant of Genghiz Khan on the mother's side, 
made Samarcand his capital in 1369 A.D. In 1392 his 
troops swam the Tigris and took Baghdad. Through 
Georgia he advanced to Moscow, which the Uzbeks had 
conquered in 1313 A.D., while at the same time estab- 
lishing his rule in Delhi. He attacked and defeated 
Bajaset (Beiazid) at Angora, and invaded Syria, taking 
Aleppo and Damascus in 1402 A.D. The sufferings of 
the eastern Christians were terrible. At Sivas four 
thousand are said to have been buried alive, and a 
pyramid of ninety thousand heads was erected at 
Baghdad. In Ispahan seven thousand children were 
trampled under the hoofs of Tartar horses such, at 
least, is the statement of history ; but these incursions 
had no permanent effect on the history of Western Asia, 
and the Turks recovered twenty years after .the defeat 
at Angora. The Osmanli family, founded by Othman, 
the Kharezmian vassal of the Sultan of Iconium in 
1288 A.D., had established themselves at Broussa and 
had threatened Constantinople before Timur appeared. 
The conquest of the city was delayed by the Tartar 
onset, but only for a time. In 1453 its crumbling walls 
were attacked, and Constantine Palaeologus was sub- 
dued by Muhammad II. In 1518 Syria fell to Selim I, 
and the tide of Osmanli success flowed steadily to the 
reign of Muhammad III (the close of the sixteenth 
century) : with Selim the title of khalif was re-assumed, 
by one who could not trace descent from Muhammad, 
but who possessed the claim of Hdmi el Haramein, 



CONCLUSION. 419 



" guardian of the two sanctuaries " of Islam. The 
condition of Palestine then resembled almost exactly 
that which had prevailed in Godfrey's time, before the 
conquest by the Latins. 

Before this rising tide of barbarism the Franks 
gradually retreated. Suleiman II took Rhodes from 
the Knights Hospitallers. Cyprus where the Venetians 
had bought the rights of Catherine Cornaro, heiress of 
the Lusignan house fell to Selim II. The Turkish 
conquests were stayed only when John Sobiesky de- 
feated Muhammad IV before Vienna on the I3th of 
September, 1683 A.D. The travellers' accounts, from the 
fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries such as those of 
Bertrandon de la Brocquiere, and Henry Maundrell 
abundantly testify to the decay of civilisation under 
the Osmanlis. The trade of Venice, which was at its 
height in 1200 A.D., was injured by the conquests of 
Genghiz Khan, but still continued by the Caspian long 
after. The Genoese, however, deserted this route in 
the fifteenth century, after Timur had ruined western 
Asia, and the Venetians prospered by developing the 
southern trade with Egypt* In 1574 the English 
made a treaty with Murad III, and Queen Elizabeth 
founded the Levant Company in 1583 A.D. But none 
of these trading enterprises brought any revival of the 
prosperity of Palestine, where all the evils of foreign 
tyranny and internal dissension continued to be felt. It 



* The Genoese and Venetians struggled for ascendancy at Constanti- 
nople in the fourteenth century. The Genoese defeated their rivals, and 
gained a naval victory in the Bosphorus in 1352. 



420 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

was Europe not Syria that profited most by the 
Latin conquest : that learned from an ancient civilisa- 
tion, and applied its lesson at home : that became 
acquainted with wider knowledge than existed in the 
West, and experienced in the government of men of 
varying belief and race. How little Asia was impressed 
by Europe we may see from the language of Syria in 
our own times ; and by the same means we may judge 
of the impress of Arab civilisation on the West. It was 
but natural that this should be the case, because Asia 
was the home of ancient culture, while Europe was still 
barbarous. The oldest civilisations known to history are 
those of Chaldea, Palestine, and Egypt. The art and 
science of Babylonians was handed down to the Persians, 
and civilised the Greeks. From such an origin sprang 
the culture of the early days of Islam, when the torch of 
knowledge was kept alight by the Arabs during the 
darkest of dark ages in Europe. The Latins knew well 
how to rule, and how to fight ; but in all other respects 
they were pupils of the Arab, who had himself been a 
pupil of the Persian and the Byzantine, and even of the 
subtle Hindoo. 

The effect of Godfrey's conquest on Europe was 
already great in the twelfth century, and became greater 
in that which followed. The Crusades carried away the 
most turbulent classes in the West, and left the quiet 
traders to grow rich at home. Many great seigneurs 
were ruined by the heavy expenses of these wars ; and 
the Communes, which first appeared in Syria, gained 
strength later at home. The power of kings increased, 



CONCLUSION. 421 



and the states of Europe were consolidated into king- 
doms. The Moslems of Spain -grew ever weaker, while 
the power of Islam was crushed for a time in its 
home, till John of Arragon conquered Valentia and 
Murcia in the end of the thirteenth century. The 
trading cities of Italy became free, and the German 
towns obtained privileges during the struggles with 
the papacy. St. Louis, who came home with the 
experience gained in Syria, did much to strengthen the 
bourgeois class in France, and to encourage learning and 
art. The "new and detestable" Communes not only 
preserved the peace, and upheld the rights of the 
newly rising middle class, which began to claim justice 
from its peers, but they also strengthened the king 
against the power of the clergy, and of the barons alike. 
Universities also arose, to study new learning of Eastern 
derivation. Paris gave education to the Greeks sent by 
Latin patriarchs to learn the Roman creed, and Greek 
books were brought to France in 1255 A.D. Bologna 
and Salamanca became famous centres of learning, and 
Oxford humbly followed them in its early obscurity.* 

* The school of Salerno, tracing to the eleventh century, decayed in the 
thirteenth. Bologna had a privilege from the Emperor Frederic I in 
1158. Paris dated from about 1150. Naples was founded by Frederic II 
in 1224, but Salamanca was not recognised as a leading university till 
1311. The German universities date later, Prague having a Bull from the 
Pope in 1347, and Vienna in 1365, while the other German universities 
belong chiefly to the Reformation period. Oxford, supposed to originate 
in migration of English students from Paris in 1167, is only first noticeable 
in 1170 as of local reputation for schools. Cambridge claims the studiuni 
generate from 1318 by Papal Bull. (See Universities of the Middle Ages, 
H. Rashdall, 1895, and Quarterly Review, April, 1896, pp. 449-463.) 
The influence of the Moslems in Spain on European civilisation has 
already been noticed (Chap. I), but that of the Syrians and Egyptians 
seem to have been more important. 



422 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM, 

The countries nearest Palestine were the first to feel the 
influence of learning and commerce, and the Lombard 
trade in London arose under Edward I. 

The Papal power waxed and waned with the fortunes 
of the Holy Land ; but the increased knowledge of the 
Latins led to its final ruin. With Innocent III (1198 to 
1216 A.D.) it reached its summit, when the Military 
Orders ruled in Palestine, though Gregory VII claimed 
temporal power over all Europe before the first Crusade. 
In 1316, under Boniface VIII, after the loss of Syria, it 
had fallen again from its pride. The Pope could no 
longer levy taxes, or order expeditions, when Europe 
ceased to be willing to take the cross for the defence of 
the Holy Land. The degradation of the Church in the 
fourteenth century is attested in the " Revelation of St. 
Bridget," which is of acknowledged authenticity accord- 
ing to Benedict XIV. 

" The Pope," says this outspoken document, " is a 
murderer of souls : he destroys and flays the flock of 
Christ : he is more cruel than Judas more unjust than 
Pilate. All the Ten Commandments he has changed to 
this one money, money ! "* 

Europe became full of murmurings against the Church 
which no longer owned the Holy Land ; but priests 
still monopolised almost every profession as lawyers, 
notaries, collectors of taxes, and even as merchants. 

* We must not forget the attacks of Piers Ploughman on friars, monks, 
absolution, &c., in Langland's work before 1399, the complaints of the 
Good Parliament as to Roman encroachments and the ' ' sinful city of 
Avignon " in 1376, the year before Wycliff was summoned as a heretic, 
or the contemporary complaints of Chaucer about pardoners and sum- 
moners from Rome. (See Jusserand's Literary History of the English People, 
pp. 272-6, 375,420.) 



CONCLUSION. 423 



But meanwhile the new knowledge was spreading 
far and wide. Aristotle, translated from Arabic, was 
championed by Thomas Aquinas, by the Dominicans, 
and by other learned Orders, though at times denounced 
by popes and councils. Homer and Virgil became 
known, and yet more precious foundations of science 
were laid, in the study of mathematics, astronomy, and 
other exact subjects, which the Syrian Jacobites had 
preserved, and taught to the Latins, or which an 
Emperor like Frederic II received from the Moslems of 
Egypt. It is often said that Europe owed most of this 
culture to the Moors in Spain ; but it must not be for- 
gotten that universities first appeared in France and 
Italy soon after the conquest of Palestine by the 
Christians, and only a century later in Spain. From 
Christians of the East the Latins would accept know- 
ledge which, when taught by Saracens, they would in the 
twelfth century have distrusted. It was not only learn- 
ing, trade, and art that profited by intercourse with the 
ancient East, even agriculture owed much to the con- 
tact. The maize came to Italy, the damson took its 
name from Damascus, and the shalot from Ascalon* ; but 
yet more, the foundation of the Renaissance was laid 
through the conquest of Syria ; and the Reformation 
was hastened by knowledge gained in the Holy Land.f 

* The Oriental plane was brought by the Templars to Ribstone. 

f Versions of Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen, &c., are ascribed to 
Honain, a Nestorian physician at Baghdad, who died as early as 876 A.D. 
Leo Pilatus taught Greek in Florence as early as 1360. The communi- 
cations between the later Byzantine emperors and Italy gave an impulse to 
Greek literature which was also encouraged by the Medicis. The fall of 
Constantinople to the Turks drove many scholars to the West. The 
Vatican library was founded by Pope Nicholas V about 1450 A.D. 



424 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

Meanwhile, however, the wisest of the Syrian Orders 
became the scapegoat for the sins of Europe. The 
Templars had fought bravely in a forlorn hope at Acre, 
and did good service later in Greece, but they were 
hated and distrusted, envied for their wealth, and accused 
of atheism and nameless crimes. In October, 1307 A.D., 
they were summoned home to France, and the Grand 
Master arriving from Cyprus was imprisoned. Fifty- 
seven knights were burned alive, and died suffering their 
torments f with constancy. In 1314 A.D. the Grand 
Master was burned with three others, and is said to 
have summoned Philip of France and the Pope to meet 
him, in four months and in forty days respectively. 
King and Pope both died within the time of their sum- 
mons, but the Order was dissolved for ever. The Bull 
of Clement V (" Faciens Misericordiam "), issued in 
1312 A.D. at the instigation of Philip le Bel, made the 
most absurd charges against the Templars. There were 
more than a hundred articles of accusation, among 
which were, the renunciation of Christ, the Virgin, and 
the Saints ; spitting on the Cross ; the adoration of " a 
certain cat," and criminal offences. It was said that 
they worshipped an idol "that is a head with three 
faces, or with one, or with a human skull," round which 
they hung their girdles to consecrate them. The 
charges against the French Templars (in the chronicle 
of St. Denys) are equally strange, and included secret 
infidelity, a treaty with Egypt to betray the Chris- 
tians, treachery to St. Louis and at Acre, and misuse 
of public funds. Their supposed idol Baphomet was 



CONCLUSION. 425 



described as "an old skin with carbuncles for eyes." 
The dead Templars were said to be burned, and their 
ashes eaten by the novices. Even the old accusation 
which had served against Manicheans and Jews was 
brought against them, for they were believed to eat 
new-born babies, and to anoint Baphomet with the 
fat of their victims. Such were the monstrous means 
by which popular suspicions were diverted from king 
and Pope, against a valiant and useful Order, whose rich 
possessions the great conspirators shared between them. 

But popular condemnation was not so easily averted, 
Dante had married Gemma de Donati in the year of 
the fall of Acre, and the Divina Commedia appeared not 
many years later. He first dared to represent a pope 
in Hell,* and, though driven from his home and threat- 
ened with the stake, his voice was never silenced. The 
knowledge of Homer and Virgil which he attained was 
then new knowledge in Europe. The very circles of his 
Inferno found their prototypes in the " Book of Enoch,'* 
which Jacobites and Copts preserved, and which with 
the Gospel of Peter was rendered into Greek by the 
Egyptian hermits.f 

It has already been noted that the china and metat 
work of Europe, from the twelfth century downwards,, 
owed its beauty to Arab and Byzantine influence ; and 
that Venetian glass was only a copy of the older Syrian 
manufacture. Painting and sculpture, wood cutting and 
the art of copper-plate engraving, are equally traced to- 



* Inferno, Hi, 56, xix, 55, 71. 
t Times, 2nd December, 1892. 



2 F 



426 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

the East. Bank notes were used in China in the ninth 
century, and block printing in the tenth. The Arab 
numerals alone made possible the calculations of later 
mathematics. Roger Bacon was able to draw a map of 
Central Asia in the reign of Henry III ; and with him 
appeared at Oxford lenses and gunpowder. He suffered 
as a wizard in prison, and died the year after the fall of 
Acre. In Italy Byzantine painters appeared, on the 
conquest of Constantinople in 1204 A.D. ; and schools 
of art were founded by them at Siena and Pisa. Cima- 
bue, the father of Italian painting, was born in 1240, 
and painted his most famous picture thirty years later. 
The influence of the art which was then adorning Beth- 
lehem with glass mosaics, and covering the chapels of 
the Jordan monasteries with frescoes, is only too plainly 
visible in the stiff forms of the first Italian masters. 
The gloomy imagination of Orcagna, in the fourteenth 
century, was fed by 'the Eastern love of terrible sub- 
jects, such as were painted on the walls of the Jerusalem 
churches. Even Raphael places the Templum Domini 
behind the figures in his " Marriage of the Virgin," and 
the arid rocky ravine of Gethsemane seems to have been 
familiar to more than one early Italian painter. 

These are but illustrations of the well-known connec- 
tion that exists between the growth of civilisation in 
Europe and the knowledge of older culture attained in 
the East. They serve to show that Europe profited by 
the Crusades, not only as regards art and commerce, but 
also as regards science and freer thought. The first 
Crusaders were ignorant men ; Frederic II was an 



CONCLUSION. 427 



elegant scholar. The army of Godfrey burned the 
" detestable " libraries of Syria : the later emperor 
sought to learn from Moslems. The Church waxed 
proud and rich, when the Duke of Jerusalem, and the 
kings who followed became vassals, not of France or of 
Germany, but of Rome. Yet the influence of Eastern 
philosophy was fatal to the superstitions of Europe. 

All this civilisation transported to the West was slowly 
lost in the East. No new Bible, not even a new Koran, 
was produced by the Arab race ; and knowledge was 
despised by the Turk. In our ow r n times we see perhaps 
the first signs of a new awakening ; and the tide sets 
once more from Europe to the shores of Acre and to 
the Nile. For more than thirty years the old County of 
Tripoli and Seigneurie of Beirut have now been ruled 
by Christians. Cyprus has passed to the nation which 
conquered it under Richard Lion Heart ; and English- 
men have done what St. Louis failed to do in Egypt. 
Tunis has fallen to the race of that great Christian 
monarch ; and the commerce of the West, in Syria and 
Asia Minor, presses once more upon the Turkish 
Empire. The Holy Land is fuller of pilgrims to-day 
than it ever was in the best times of Latin rule ; and 
even Damascus cannot now resist the inroads of Western 
enterprise. A happier time may be in store for Syria 
than any it has known as yet ; but we must not forget 
that much of what we now enjoy is due to the brave and 
wise rulers who founded the kingdom of Jerusalem, and 
to the men of science and learning who taught to them 
the secrets of the East, and preserved the fruits of earlier 

2 F 2 



428 THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

human thought and labour, during centuries when all 
was dark in Europe. The Crusades were no wild raids 
on Palestine, resulting only in misery and destruction. 
The kingdom of Jerusalem was the model of just and 
moderate rule, such as we boast to have given to India, 
under somewhat similar conditions ; but the benefits of 
these- two stirring centuries have as yet been mainly 
enjoyed in the West, and a debt due by the Frank has 
still to be paid in the East. 



INDEX. 



Abagha (Khan), 377, 389, 390, 394, 395, 398. 

Abbasides, II, 225, 381. 

Abu Salim, 56. 

Abyssinians, 222, 223. 

Aceldama. See Potter's Field. 

Acre, 57, 73, 77, 83, 86, 113, 155, 162, 165, 173, 193, 244, 257-263, 295, 

304, 3M, 324-3 2 6, 330, 34, 39i, 400, 406, 407-4I3- 
Adana, 38, 99. 
Adelard of Bath, 19. 
(El) 'Adid (Khalif), 119, 123, 129. 
Adhemar (Legate), 44, 50. 
Agnes (Queen), 124, 139. 
Ahamant (Castle) Ma'an, 118. 
Ain Tab, 40. 
Aiyas, 38, 40, 53, 325. 
Akabah (Ailah), 129, 140. 
Akkar, 88, 393. 
Aleppo, 46, 51, 73, 94, 95, 125, 127, 129, 136, 140, 142, 305, 325, 382, 

418. 

Alexandretta, 40. 
Alexius. See Greek Emperors. 
Albigenses, 76, 216, 305. 
Alice of Antioch, 92, 96, 97. 
Alp Arslan [Seljuk 1063-1072 A. .]. 12, 13, 32. 
Alphabets, 322, 333, 376. 
'Aly (Khalif), n, 225. 
Amain, 5, 17, 204, 207. 
Amaury. See Jerusalem, Kings of. 
Amida, 40. 

Anselm of Canterbury, 84. 
Antioch. 42, 43, 47, 88, 127, 155, 158, 185, 193, 205, 243, 325, 326. 338, 

339, 3*7, 389- 
Antioch, Princes of 

Boemund I [1098-1111], 17, 35, 43, 47, 51, 52. 

Boemund II [1126-1131], 78, 85. 

Raymond of Poitou [1136-1149], 97, no, 113. 

Renaud of Chatillon [1149-1160], no, 117, 118, 121, 135, 140-144, 

146, 147, 155. 

Boemund III [1163-1199], 121, 138, 154, 243, 302. 
Boemund IV [1200-1233], 3 O2 > 33&> 34 1 - 
Rupon of Armenia [1205-1222], 302, 339. 



43 INDEX. 

Antioch, Princes of 

Boemund V [1233-1250]. 

Boemund VI [1251-1268], 385, 389. 

Boemund VII [1268-1287], 393, 396, 397, 402, 40}. 
Antipopes Gregory VIII [1118-1121], 16. 

An iclete [1130-1139], 112. 
Apamea, 52, 53. 
Arabs, 10, 18, 167, 227, 416. 
Area, 49, 55, 56, 82, 202, 400. 
Argun (Khan), 377, 401, 404. 
Arkah (Syria), 129. 
Armenia, 39, 95 
Armem'-!"., Kings of 

Thoros [1098-1175], 38, 121, 302. 

Rupon II [1175-1188], 302. 

Leo II [1188-1219], 219, 302-303, 324, 325, 339. 

Rupon III [1219-1222]. See Antioch, Princes of. 

Haithon I (1235-1270], 350, 376, 377, 385, 388. 

Leo III [1270-1289], 398, 400, 401. 

Haithon II [1289-1291], 406. 

Armenians, 9, 39, 131, 218-221, 255, 369, 379, 396, 398. 
Armour, 175. 
Arms, 177. 
Army, 177, 210. 

Arnold (Patriarch), 65, 67, 84, 85, 91, 92. 
Aisuf, 72, 73, 78, 83, 84, 155, 163, 276, 278, 340, 359, 387. 
Art, 333, 426. 
Artesia, 41, 53, 92. 
Ascalon, 67, 70, 73, 78, 80, 84, 88, 113-115, 144, 155, 243, 248, 279-282, 

296, 339- 

Assassin;;, 77, 229, 230, 284, 288, 338, 360, 391. 
Assizes of Jerusalem, 72, 172-173, 197, 220, 241, 331-332, 334. 
Atabek (Sultans), 95, 108, 120, 128, 136, 140, 146. 
Atsiz, 13. 
Augustines, 193, 307. 

Baalbek, in, 158, 304, 402. 

Baghdad, 10, 244, 245. 

Balak (Sultan), 92-94. 

Baldwin. See Jerusalem, Kings of. 

of Canterbury, 257, 262. 

of Flanders, 298-301, 338, 346. 
Balian of Ibelin, 152, 156. 

Banias (Belinas), 73, 88, 99, 115, 121, 139, 193. 
Baphomet, 168, 424. 
Bar Hebrreus, 220, 320, 321. 
Basilica of Constantine, 6. 
Batrun, 88, 326. 
Batu (Khan), 371, 377. 
Bedouin, 241. 
Beer, 183. 



INDEX. 431 

Beirut, 77, 79, 90, 118, 140, 155, 185, 189, 206, 243, 295, 296, 324, 325, 

335. 406. 

Beit Jibrin (Gibelin), 100. 156, 163, 243, 285, 337, 359. 
Beit Nuba, 137, 243, 281, 285. 
Bela of Hungary, 155, 254, 307. 
Belfort (Castle), 130, 159, 202, 236, 359. 
Belmont (Castle), 279. 
Belus (River). 57, 257, 258, 262, 339, 4c8. 
Belvoir (Castle), 139, 148-150, 158, 159, 279, 337. 
Benedictines, 193, 196, 197, 204. 320, 370. 
Berengaria of Navarre, 264, 266, 269, 280, 290. 
Bernard (Saint), 108, 202. 
Besni, 40, 129. 
Bethany. 98, 193, 196, 197. 

Bethlehem, 58, 64, 79, 187-188, 193, 19^, 243, 313, 417. 
Bibars (Sultan), 336, 351, 364, 386-389, 391-395- 
Bir, 40 

Bishops (Latin), 193. 

Blanche garde (Tell es San), 100, 279, 286. 
Boemund. See Antioch, Princes of. 
Bordeaux Pilgrim, 4. 
Borkiaruk (Sultan), 14, 42, 48. 
Bouillon, 19. 

Boulogne (Counts of), 19. 
Bows (Turkish), 34. 

Cresarea, 57, 73. 78, 83, 155, 187, 193, 248, 275, 313, 359, 387. 

Casarea. See Sheizur. 

Calamon (Monastery), 188, 222. 

Calvary, 6, 61, 62, 74, 171, 

Canebrake of Starlings, 137. 

Caravans, 89, 210, 330, 331. 

Carmel (Mount), 57, 78, 274, 401, 402. 

Carmelites, 197-198. 

Cartulary of Holy Sepulchre, 72. 

Carucates, 163, 240. 

Casales, 240. 

Castles, 89, 90. 100, 181, 186. 

Cats, 211. 

Caymont (Tell Keimun), 78, 274, 359, 401. 

Charlemagne, 5, 10, I?. 

Charles of Anjou, 348, 356, 364, 387, 390, 396, 

Chateau Arnaud, 137, 203, 279. 

Blanc (Safita), 87, 335, 339, 400. 

N T euf, 139, 150, 286. 

Pchrin (Athlit), 275, 309. 313, 335, 359, 400, 402. 

Rouge, 337. 

Child's Crusade, 306-307. 
China (Porcelain), 10, 331. 
Chozeboth (St. John), 224. 
Churches, 103-105, 1X6-188, 406, 409,410, 417. 



432 INDEX. 

Clermcnt, Council of, 23. 

Coal, 383. 

Coins, iig. 

Concealed Destruction (Book of), 235. 

Communes, 207, 421. 

Constance of Antioch, 97, 117. 

Constance of Sicily, 266, 296. 

Constantine, 6, 30, 31, 61. 

Constantinople, 29, 31, 145, 243, 259-301, 387, 418. 

Copts, 9, 221. 

Councils, 84, 93, 192, 285, 286, 309, 393. 

Cour de la Foncle, 173. 

Crocodile River, 57, 275. 

Cross (True), 6, 7, 147. 152, 154, 171, 222, 252, 272, 273, 318, 346. 

Crusades 

1st, 18-71. 

2nd, 1 08- 1 12. 

3rd, 252-291. 

4tb, 295-296. 

5th, 297-300. 

6th, 307-311. 

7th, 315-316. 

8th, 344-363- 

9th, 390-392. 
Cultivation, 239, 423. 

Cursed Tower (Maledictum), 271, 272, 411. 
Customs, 173. 

Cyprus, 46, 267-270, 283, 288, 324, 349-350, 363, 419. 
Cyprus (Kings of) 

Guy of Lusignan [1192-1194]. See Jerusalem, Kings of. 

Amauiy II [1194-1205]. See Jerusalem, Kirgs of. 

Hugh I [1205 1218], 289, 314, 339. 

Henry I [1219-1253], 289, 314. 

Hugh II [1253-1267], 289, 347. 

Hugh III [1267-1284], 289, 393, 396. 

John I [1284-1285], 289, 397. 

Henry II [1285-1324], 289, 411. 

Daimbert (Patriarch), 50, 67, 84, 85. 

Daluk (Tulupe), 40. 

Damascus, n, 42, 46, 73, 78, 88, 96, in, 112, 244, 248, 290 304, 315, 

317, 318, 325, 330, 418. 
Damietta, 127, 310, 350-355. 
Dandolo (Doge), 298-301. 
Danes, 45. 

Dargham (Vizir), 119. 

Darum (Fortress'. 78, 155, 279, 282, 284, 285, 359. 
Dead River, 275. 

Devil's Mountain (Sultan Dagh), 36. 
District (Dustrey), 275. 
Dokak, 42. 



INDEX 433 

Dome of the Rock, 8, 59, 105, 106, 157. 
Dress, 177-180, 203, 206. 
Dmzes, 231-236. 

Ebremar (Patriarch), 84. 
Edessa, 38, 39, 140, 206. 
Edessa (Counts of) 

Baldwin I [1097-1100]. See Jerusalem, Kings of. 

Baldwin II [1100-1118]. See Jerusalem, Kings of. 

Jocelyn I [1118-1131], 85, 92-94, 97. 

Jocelyn II [1131-1146], 107, 108, 124. 
Edgar Atheling, 23, 56. 
Egypt, 12, 13, 41, 91, 119-128, 245, 304, 310-311, 350-355, 

419. 

El Barah, 52, 53. 

Eleanor of Guienne, no, 266, 289. 
Eleutherus River, 55, 56, 87, 192. 
Emesa (Horns), 55, 87, 127, 129, 206, 338, 382, 396. 
England (Kings of) 

William I [1066-1087], 22. 

William II [1087-1100], 22. 

Henry I [1100-1135], 90. 

Stephen [1135-1154], 22, 76, 108. 

Henry II [1154-1189], 76, 96, 110, 126, 148, 154, 251, 253, 264. 

Richard I [1189-1199], 177, 178, 251, 253, 263-290. 

John [1199-1216], 192, 251, 265, 273, 283, 289, 306, 307, 354. 

Henry III [1216-1272], 248, 312, 315, 325, 345, 350, 358, 385. 

Edward I [1272-1307], 231, 390-394, 397, 399, 400, 404. 
Eustace Gamier, 93, 94. 
Eustace II and III of Boulogne, 19, 20, 91. 
Ezzaz, 51, 53, 1 86. 

Fairs, 210. 

Fatimites (Khalifs), 13,91, 119. 

Fiefs, 77, 162-164. 

Flies (Tower of), 260, 271, 409. 

Food, 182, 184. 

Foulques (Cure), 297. 

France, 20. 

France (Kings of) 

Philip I [1060-1108], 21. 

Louis VI [1108-1137], 76, 284, 301. 

Louis VII [1137-1180], 108-112, 120, 121, 122, 126, 191,201. 

Philip II [1180-1223], 154, 251, 253, 262-264, 266-268, 271-273, 

297, 307- 

Louis VIII [1223-1226], 312. 

Louis IX [1226-1270], 179, 199, 315, 344-365, 389. 
Philip III [1270-1285], 365, 393, 401. 
Philip IV [1285-1314], 365. 
Louis X [1314-1316], 365. 
Franciscans. See Minorites. 



434 INDEX. 

Frank population, 165. 
Frederic of Suabia, 255, 259. 
Fuleh (Castle), 142, 147, 150, 155. 
Fulk. See Jerusalem, Kings of. 
P'ltnduk, 51, 1 66. 
Furs, 176, I79,33 2 . 370. 

Gabala, 53, 56, 158, 339. 

Galatia (Castle). 279, 285. 

Galleys, 214, 326-328. 

Games, 182-183. 

Gamier de Grey, 79. 

Gasmoule-:, 210. 

Gaza, 78, 122, 137, 156, 187, 202, 279, 315, 317- 

Gebal, 13, 57, 77, 86, 87, 88, 155, 206, 208, 243, 296, 325. 

Genghiz Khan, 135, 316, 386 389, 403. 

Genoese, n, 51, 56, 64, 83, 86, 87, 155, 208, 283, 287, 304, 308, 325, 

33. 353, 354, 4io, 419. 
Geoffrey de Lusignan, 153. 
Georgians, 9, 222, 303-304, 371, 396., 398. 
Gerard d'Avesnes, 73. 
German Emperors 

Henry IV [1056-1106], 16. 

Henry V [1106-1125]. 

Lothaire II [1125-1138]. 

Conrad III [1138-1152], 108, 109 no, 124. 

Frederic I [1152-1191], 77, 109, no, 133, 142, 145, 155, 192, 251- 

253- 

Henry VI [1191-1198], 254, 266, 289, 295-296. 

Philip [1198-1198], 296, 297, 298, 305. 

Otho IV [1198-1212], 296, 297, 305. 

Frederic II [1212-1250], 248, 296, 305, 311-315, 326, 358. 

Conrad IV [1250-1250], 358, 364. 

William [1250-1256], 387. 

Rudolph [1277-1292], 394. 
Gezer, 137, 359. 
(El) Ghazi, 14, 48, 52, 88, 92. 
Glass, 331, 333. 

Godfrey. See Jerusalem, Kings of. 
Gospel of Peter, 360. 

Greek Christians, 9, 54, 169, 194, 215, 223-224. 
Greek Emperors 

Alexius I Comnenos [1081-1118], 17, 23, 28, 32, 42, 45, 49, 50, 91. 

John ,, [1118-1143], 98, 99. 

Manuel ,, [1143-1180], 145, 268. 

Alexius II ,, [1180-1183], I45, 2 68. 

Andronicus ,, [1183-1186], 145, 268. 

Isaac Angelus [1186-1195], J 45> 2 53~ 2 55, 268, 298-301. 

Alexius III Angelus [1195-1204], 297, 298-301. 
Greek Fire, 65, 211-212, 259, 270, 272. 
Guelphs and Ghibelines, 77, 126, 346, 407. 



IN HEX. 435 

Haifa, 73, 78, 80, 155, 198, 260-262, 275, 287, 289, 325, 359. 

Haithon. See Armenia, Kings of. 

(El) Hakem (Khalif), 6, 13, 231, 232, 233. 

Hamath, 55, 127, 129, 136, 304, 382. 

ffdmi el ffaranirin, 252, 418. 

Hamzah (Druze), 231-235. 

Hamzah (Shield of), 9. 

Harenc (Harim Castle), 41,51, 116, 121, 136, 142. 

Hai-ran, 40, 85, 93, 146. 

Harun er RashiH, 10. 

Hattin, 1.18-149. 

Hawking, 37, 183, 261. 

Hebron, 73, 78, '135, 187, 193, 201, 243. 

Helena (Queen), 4, 7, 62. 

Heraldry, 175-176. 

Hildebrand (Pope Gregory VII, 1073-1086), 5, 15. 

Holy Fire, 80-83, 283, 

Holy Grail, 83. 

Holy Sepulchre, 7, 61, 62, 82, 102, 103, 116, 156, 187, 189, 193, 194, 252, 

288, 417. 

Horses, 163. 173, 211, 265. 

Hospital of St. John, 5, 59, 82, 103, 115, 116, 197, 203. 
Hospitallers (Knights), no, 125, 126, 130, 146, 147, 153, 170, 202, 203- 

206, 213, 241, 253, 277, 278, 286, 288, 303, 312, 315, 318, 384, 

393. 394, 398, 403, 404, 409, 412. 
Houses, 185. 

Huyh, Count of Paris, II. 
Hugh of Jaffa, 98. 
Hugh of Vermandois, 21, 28, 43. 
Hulagu (Khan), 377, 381-383- 
Humphrey of Toron (elder), 117, 139. 

,, ,, (younger), 143, 146, 153, 155, 256, 280, 285. 

Hungarians, 19, 26, 155, 254, 307, 308, 369, 417. 
Hunin (Castle), 123, 139, 158. 

Ibelin (Yebnah), 100, 155, 282 

Iberians. See Georgians. 

Ibn Jobeir, 77, 174, 179, 323, 330. 

Ibn Tulun, 12. 

Iconium, 37, 50, 109, 255, 314, 331, 378. 

Iconium (Sultans of) 

Kilij Arslan I [1092-1107], 32, 35, 36. 

Saisan [1107-1117]. 

Masaud I [1117-1155], 99. 

Kilij Arslan II [1155-1192], 132, 139, 254. 

Gayaz ed Din I [1192-1210]. 

'Ezz ed Din I [1210-1219]. 

'Ala ed Din [1219-1237]. 

Gayaz ed Din II [1237-1244]. 

'Ezz ed Din II [1244-1261], 383. 

Rukn ed Din [1261-1263]. 



436 INDEX. 

Iconium (Sultans of) 

Gayaz ed Din III [1263-1283]. 

Masdud II [1283-1294], 
Iron Bridge, 41. 
Isaac. See Greek Emperors. 
Isaac Comnencs (Cyprus), 268. 

Isabella (Queen), 124, 143, 146, 156, 256, 284, 288, 295, 314, 396. 
Ismdiliyeh, 228. 

Jacobite Christians, 9, 39, 40, 219, 220, 320, 331. 

Jacques d'Avesnes, 258, 279. 

Jacques de Vitry, 307. 

Jaffa,' 58, 78, 94, 98, 155, 176, 193, 243, 279, 280, 285 286, 295, 313,324, 

326, 388. 

Jehoshaphat (St. Mary), 193, 194, 404. 
Jerablus, 40. 
Jerusalem, i, 5, 14, 47, 58-61, 88, 100-107, 137, 156, 157, 176, 243,305, 

308, 313, 315,319, 404, 405- 
Jerusalem (Kings of) 

Godfrey [1099-1100], 19, 20, 29, 36, 44, 45, 56, 58, 63, 67-74, 317. 

Baldwin I [1100-1118], 19, 20, 37, 38, 39, 46, 52, 79, 80-84, 103, 
105, 140, 181, 205. 

Baldwin II [1118-1131], 20, 49, 79, 80-82, 85, 88, 91-97, 202, 209. 

Fulk [1131-1144], 95, 97-100. 

Baldwin III [1144-1162], 100, 107, 108, no, iij-u8, 208, 241. 

Amaury I [1162-1173], 118, 120, 127, 137, 169, 196, 280, 28$. 

Baldwin IV [1173-1185], 124, 125, 130, 144, 145, 198, 241, 280. 

Baldwin I V [ 1 1 85- 1 1 86], 1 38, 1 45. 

Guy of Lusignan [1186-1192], 138, 144, 146, 155, 255-257, 268- 
273, 278, 283, 289. 

Conrad [1192-1192]. See Montferrat. 

Henry of Champagne [1192-1197], 177, 259, 283-285, 287, 295, 314, 

341. 

Amaury II [1197-1210], 153, 288, 297, 336, 406. 
John of Brienne [1210-1237], 295, 304, 307, 309, 310, 312, 314, 339, 

396. 

Jews, 9, 242-248, 264, 265, 322. 
Jocelyn (Count). See Edessa, Count of. 
Jocelyn III, Courtney, 138, 139. 
Joan of England, 266, 282. 
Joseph de Cancy (Sir), 339, 397, 399. 
Juiverie, 104, 243. 

Karakorum, 372. 

Kasimiyeh (Leontes River), 77> 256, 295. 

Kelaun (Sultan), 176, 325, 336, 395, 396, 398, 400-402, 406. 

Kerak (Castle), 78, 89, 100, 117, 127, 136, 143, 144, 155, 158, 279, 315, 

348, 388. 

Kerboga (Seljuk), 42, 46, 47, <8. 
Khalifs, 10, II, 12, 129, 225, 381, 418. 
Kharezmians, 12, 13, 316-318, 348. 



INDEX. 437 

Khitai (Khatre Cathayans), 133, 134. 

Khozars, 247-248. 

Khyrros, 40. 

Kidron Valley, 58, 64, 224. 

Kilij Arslan. See Iconium, Sultans of. 

Kishon River, 57. 

Koran, 18, 49, 125, 168, 320. 

Krak (Castle), 87, 206, 246, 337, 359, 392. 

Kubla Khan, 377, 378. 

Kurds, 12, 34. 

Kutuz (Sultan), 382, 386. 

Lance (Holy), 49. 

Language, 132, 166, 167, 281, 319, 367. 

Latakia (Laodicea), 45, 50, 53, 86, 127, 158, 206, 296, 400, 402, 417. 

Latin Church, 191, 197, 215. 

Latrun. See Toron. 

Laws. See Assizes. 

Leo. See Armenia, Kings of. 

Letters of the Sepulchre, 72, 172. 

Literature, 18, 30, 190, 226, 319-324, 423. 

Lorraine, Dukes of, 19. 

Lubieh, 151. 

Lydda, 57, 60, 193, 207, 279. 

Maarrah, 55. 

Maen (Castle), 279, 280. 

(El) Mahdy, 225, 226. 

Malatiya, 40, 79. 

Maledictum. See Cursed Tower. 

Malmistta, 38, 50 53, 99, 116. 

Manasseh de Herges, no, 113. 

Mangonels, 211. 

Mangu Khan, 369. 

Marakieh (Castle), 56, 206, 338, 401. 

Marash, 40, 129. 

Marco Polo, 378-382. 

Mardin, 40. 

Margat (el Merkeb Castle), 51, 87, 158, 163, 206, 337, 400, 402. 

Maria Comnena (Queen), 124, 125, 199. 

Maron, 78, 117, 402. 

Maronites, 57, 131, 217. 

Marseilles, 114, 209, 324. 

Mary of Antioch, 396. 

Masons' Marks, 184. 

Mathassep, 173, 332. 

Matilda (Empress), 76, 96, 108. 

Maudud (Sultan), 88, 95. 

Medina, 141. 

Mejdel Yaba, 155, 279. 

Melchites, 218. 



438 INDEX. 

Mdt-k el 'Adel Self ed Din, 143, 156, 274, 280, 282, 295, 305, 308, 315, 
325, 406. 

el Afdal (Vizir), 14, 41, 47, 48, 56, 70, 91. 

el Afdal (Sultan), 147. 

el Ashraf (Sultan), 314, 406. 

edh Dhaher (Sultan), 305. 

el Kamil (Sultan), 308, 309, 312, 313, 315, 326. 

es Saleh (Alabek), 129, 136, 157. 

es Saleh (Sultan), 3,7, 350, 351, 386. 

Shah (Sultan), 12, 14. 
Membej, 46, 94, 136. 
Michael Scott, 19. 
Michael Palseologus, 301, 387. 

Milicent (Queen), 92. 98, no, 112, 113, 117, 190, 195, 196. 
Minorites (Friars), 197, 309, 314, 375, 376, 377, 394, 405, 410. 
Mirabel (Castle), 113, 279. 
Modestus, 6, 7. 
Mongols. See Tartars. 
Monophysites, 217. 
Monothelites, 218. 
Montferrand (Castle), 87, 97, 99. 
Montferrat, Marquesses of 

William II [1140-1178], 138. 
William III [1178-1188], 256. 

Conrad [1188-1192], 154, 156, 203, 230, 256, 257, 259, 2 ; 8. 269. 
Boniface II [1192-1207], 298, 300. 
Montfort (Castle), 78, 381, 402. 
Montjoie (St. Samuel), 66, 187, 197. 

Montreal (Castle), Shobek, 89, 117, 135, 136, 155, 159, 103. 
Mont Musard (Acre), 408, 410. 
(El) Muaddem (Sultan), 351-354, 386. 
Muhammad (Prophet), 9, 168. 
<E1) Muktacli (Khalif), 12. 
Music, 177, 183. 
{El) Mustadi (Khalif), 128. 
(El) Mustali (Khalif), 14, 69, 91, 119. 
(El) Mustansir (Khalif), 6, 13. 

Nablus (Shechem), 58, 78, 88, 113, 143, 146, 187. 192, 193, 196, 205, 

248, 249, 304, 387, 391. 

Nazareth, 147, 155, 187, 193, 195, 313, 339, 359, 417. 
Nestorians, 39, 217, 219, 220, 371, 375. 
Nicea, 32, 109. 
Nisibis, 40 140, 217, 244. 
Normans, 10, 15, 112. 
Norsemen, 90. 
Niir cd Din (Sultan), 108, 113, 120, 121, 123, 125, 127, 128, 129, 157, 

236, 244. 
Nuseiriyeh, 236, 237. 

Omar of Ezzaz, 51. 



INDEX. 439 

Ortok Ibn Eksek, 14, 48, 176. 
Osmanli Sultans, 417-419. 
Oultre Jourdan (Fief), 78, 89, 117. 

Palace at Jerusalem, 104. 

Palmers, 101, 200. 

Palmyra, 244. 330. 

Peter Bartholomew, 48. 

Peter the Hermit, 6, 8, 9, 17, 23, 24, 45, 65. 

Philosophy, 132, 226, 227, 320. 

Pictures. 8, 103, 106, i8i, 200, 216, 224. 

Pilgrimages, 4, 52, 89, 114, 165, 2O3, 384. 

Pirates, 45, 90, 255. 260. 

Pisans, 13, 86, 87, 127, 154, 155, 201, 207, 261, 262, 271, 283, 287, 304, 

305, 308, 325, 356. 409. 
Piano Carpini, 347, 371. 
Plans (Castle), 279, 280, 282, 338. 
Popes 

Urban II [1088-1099], 15, 23, 50. 

Paschal II [1099-1118], 84, 91, 192, 195, 204. 

Gelasius II [iiiJJ-iiig]. 

Calixtus II [1119-1124]. 

Honorius II [1124-1130], 94, 202. 

Innocent II [1130-1143], 117, 191, 193. 

Celestin II [1143-1144], 201. 

Lucius II [1144-1145], 108. 

Eugenius III [1145-1153], 109. 

Anastasius IV [1153-1154]. 

Adrian IV [1154-1159], 115. 

Alexander III [1159-1181], 77, 126, 130, 131, 192, 195, 203, 223, 
255, 368. 

Lucius III [1181-1185], 131, 143, 145. 

Urban III [1185-1187], 154, 155. 

Gregory VIII [1187-1187], 155. 

Clement III [1187-1191], 155, 253. 

Celestin III [1191-1198], 272, 295, 296, 326, 340. 

Innocent III [1198-1216], 219, 296, 297, 303, 305, 308, 336. 

Honorius III [1216-1227], 3 OI > 33> 3 12 - 

Gregory IX [1227-1241], 195, 219, 312, 314, 316. 

Celestin IV [1241-1241], 316. 

Innocent IV [1243-1254], 316, 346, 347, 371. 

Alexander IV [1254-1261], 194, 196, 383. 

Urban IV [1261-1265]. 

Clement IV [1265-1271], 195, 389. 

Gregory X [1271-1276], 378, 393, 394. 

Adrian V [1276-1277], 394, 404. 

Nicholas III [1277-1281], 394, 396. 

Martin IV [1281-1285]. 

Honorius IV [1285-1288], 401. 

Nicholas IV [1288-1294], 377, 403, 407. 
Potter's Field, 2, 60, 197, 201, 205. 



440 INDEX. 

Poulains, 180, 209. 
Pourpoint, 175. 
Premonstrants, 196, 197. 
Prester John, 132, 368. 
Prussians, 19, 307, 308. 

Quarantania (Mount), 195, 222. 

Rakkah, 40, 140, 330. 

Ramleh, 57, 114, 155, 243, 279-281. 

Ravendah, 40. 

Raymond d'Agiles, 48. 

Raymond of Poitou. See Antioch, Princes of. 

Raymond of Toulouse. See Tripoli, Counts of. 

Relics, 31, 71, 109, 171, 200, 309, 362, 394. 

Renaud of Chatillon. See Antioch, Princes of. 

Rhodes, 46, 50. 

Rings, 20 1. . 

River of Reuben, 70, 210. 

Robert of England, 21, 22, 29, 31, 41, 43, 56, 70. 

Robert of Flanders, 21, 29, 43, 56, 69. 70. 

Robert Guiscard, 16, 17. 

Rochetailie River, 78, 276. 

Roger, Governor of Antioch, 52. 

Roger of Sicily. See Sicily, Kings of. 

Roger Guiscard, 17, 9 1 - 

Romanus Diogenes [1067-1071], 12. 

Round Cistern, 286. 

Royal Road, 36. 

Rubruquis, 370-377. 

Rudhwan (Sultan), 51, 52, 88. 

Rudolph of Suabia, 19, 20. 

Riim-Kalah, 40. 

Safed, 78, 115, 139. IS 8 34', 359, 388. 
Saint Abraham. See Hebron. 

George, 78. 

James, 8, 104. 

Lazarus. 184, 196, 197, 405. 

Mary of Jehoshaphat. See Jehoshaphat. 
,, Latin, 187, 193, 204. 
La Grande, 103, 187. 

Saba, 81, 224. 

Samuel. See Montjoie. 

Simon Stylites, 41, 52, 222. 

Sion, 60, 193, 195. 

Sophia, 31, 300. 

Saladin, 99, in, 120,. 125-130, 136, 137, 146-160, 205, 231, 251-293. 
Salt Pans, 275, 333, 335. 
Salt River, 276. 
(Es) Salt, 189, 193. . 



INDEX. 441 

Samaria, 109, 155. 

Samaritans, 248-249. 

Samosata, 40, 108. 

Saone (Sahyun Castle), 53, 158, 206. 

Saracens, 168. 

Sardenai, 189, 195, 200. 

Scandalion, 206, 257. 

Seffurieh, 147, 148, 155. 

Seif ed Din. See Melek el Adel. 

Seleucia (Suweidiyeh), 52, 53, 163. 

Seljuks, 11, 32, 42, 95, 131-132, 254. 

Sepphoris. See Sefiurieh. 

Shakkah, 57. 

Sharon (Plain), 57. 

Shawer (Vizir), 119, 121, 122, 126. 

Shechem. Sfe Nablus. 

Sheizur (Csesarea ad Libanum), 46, 56, 99, 116. 

Shidh Moslems, n, 13, 14, 124, 225, 236. 

Ships, 141, 212-214, 259, 260, 265-268, 326-328. 

Shirkoh (Asad ed Din), 120, 125, 126. 

Shobek. See Montreal. 

Sibyl (Queen), 124, 136, 146, 156, 253, 254, 256. 

Sicily (Kings of) 

Roger II [1130-1154], 112, 323. 

William I [1154-1166]. 

William II [1166-1189], 255, 256, 401. 

Tancred [1189-1194], 266, 296. 

William III [1194-1194]. 

Sidon, 57, 77, 90, 155, 173, 185, 296, 313, 341, 359, 385, 400, 406. 
Siege Towers, 65, 115, 211. 
Sinai, 82, 118, 123, 171, 193, 223, 394. 
Sinjil, 58, 78, 196. 
Slaves, 173, 241. 
Soethe (Land of), 78. 
Spain, n, 18. 
Sport, 183. 

Stephen of Blois, 22, 29, 43, 45. 
Stephen (son of Thibaud of Blois), 138. 
Sugar Cane, 87, 241. 
Siikman (Sultan), 14, 48. 
Sunnee Moslems, n, 14, 128, 225, 
Superstitions, 171, 373, 374. 
Sylvester (Pope), 15. 
Syrian Christians, 9, 40, 54. 

Tabor (Mount), 80, 184, 187, 193, 195, 196, 197, 224, 308, 339, 387. 
Tancred, 18, 36-38, 43, 49, 52, 53, 56, 58, 60, 63, 66, 69, 70, 73, 78, 80, 

85, 88, 97. 

Tancred (King). See Sicily, Kings of. 
Tarsus, 37, 38, 50, 99, no, 255, 325, 331. 
Tartars, 248, 304, 316, 347-34$, 366-385. 

2 G 



442 INDEX. 

Taxes, 173, 174. 

Tekoa, 78, 98. 

Tell Bashar. See Turbessel. 

Templars, 103, 105, no, ill, 112, 115, 121, 123, 137, 146-148, 150, 152, 

153, 2OO, 2O2, 2C3, 212, 22O, 253, 259, 280, 28l, 285, 288, 296, 

302, 303, 312, 313, 316, 318, 335-337, 355-357, 3^4, 394, 396, 

402, 405, 409-413, 424, 425. 

Templum Domini, 59, 82, 105-106, 202, 203, 404. 
Templum Salomonis, 59, 103, 105, 404. 
Ten Tribes, 246. 

Teutonic Knights, 104., 202, 312-313, 340-342, 359, 384, 409, 411. 
Thibaut of Champagne, 297, 298, 345. 
Thierry of Flanders, 12. 
Theodora (Queen), 116, 165. 
Thomas a Becket, 192. 337, 410. 
Thoros. See Armenia, Kings of. 
Tiberias, 88, 147-149, 154, 193, 244. 
Timur, 418. 
Tithes, 196, 253, 393. 
Toghrul Bey, 12. 

Toron (Latrun), 137, 156, 243, 279, 285. 
Toron (Tibnin), 77. 90, 117, 155, 257, 296, 313. 
Tortosa, 51, 56, 88, 187, 202, 2j3, 206, 335, 361, 362, 406, 417. 
Trade, 11, 173, 20$, 210, 3 2 4~335, 372, 379, 380, 417. 
Treaties, 72, 73, 88, 93, 123, 124, 130, 139, 209, 288, 313, 353, 392, 400, 

401, 402, 405, 417. 

Tripoli, 13, 85-87, 127, 155, 304, 359, 396, 402, 403, 417. 
Tripoli (Counts of) 

Raymond I of Toulouse [1098-1105], 21, 43, 49, 55,58, 63, 67, 70, 

71, 73, 85, 86. 

Bertram [1105-1112], 86, 87. 
Pons [1112-1137], 86, 92, 97, 99. 
Raymond II [1137-1163], 99, 121. 

Raymond III [1163-1189], 130, 135, 144, 146, 148-149, 152, 156, 230. 
Tubania (Fountain), 142. 
Tulupe (Daluk), 40. 
Turbessel, 40, 206. 
Turkomans, 5, 14, 255, 398. 
Turkopoles, 126, 211, 398. 

Turks, n, 33, 88, 99, 109, 113, 176, 367, 418, 419. 
Turon (Camp), 257, 271. 
Tutush, 13, 48. 
Tyre, 57. 77, 85, 87, 94, 113, 117, 124, 152, 155, 158, 162, 173, 187, 193, 

243, 256, 283, 324-326, 341, 359, 402, 406. 

Uigurs, 12, 134, 367, 376. 
Ung Khan. See Prester John. 
Universities, u, 421. 
Urban. See Popes. 

Valenia (Banias), 53, 56, 202, 206. 



INDEX. 



Valley of Gorgons, 36. 

Venetians, II, 72, 87, 93, 112, 180, 208, 254, 298-301, 304, 305, 308, 324- 

326, 409, 419. 

Victor III [Pope 1086-1088], 15. 
Villeins, 237-239. 
Vincent of Beauvais, 321. 
Viscount, 162-172. 
Vows, 169, 170. 

William of Tyre, 125, 127, 138, 199-200,251. 
Wine, 183, 241. 

Yaghi Sian, 42, 46. 
Yebnah. See Ibelin. 
Yemen (Conquest of), 130. 
Yolande of Brienne, 312, 314. 

Zanghi (Sultan), 95, 97, 98, 107, 108. 



THE END. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



Tent Work in Palestine . 
Handbook to the Bible . 
Heth and Moab 



. P. E. Fund. 

Longmans. 

. P. E. Fund. 



Primer of Bible Geography. Sunday School Union. 

Syrian Stone Lore . . . . P. E, Fund. 

Altaic Hieroglyphs . . . . Ditto. 

Palestine .... Phillips & Son. 

The Tell Amarna Tablets . P. E. fund. 

Judas Maccabseus. New edition . . Ditto. 

The Bible and the East Blackwood. 



1878. 
1879. 
1883. 
1884. 
1886. 
1887. 
1891. 
1893. 
1894. 
1896. 



Harrison & Sens, Printers in Ordinary to Her Majesty, St. Mat-tin's Lane, London 



FOR CIRCULATION. 







1 



PALESTINE 
EXPLORATION FUND. 



Uatrmi. 

THE QUEEN. 



THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. 

Chairman of (Bmutibt Commilftt. 
JAMES GLAISHER, F.R.S. 

$<m. Srtasurrr. i)on. cmtaijt. 

|| WALTER MORRISON, ESQ., M.P. SIR WALTER BESANT, M.A, 

Citing j?rcrttarj). 
GEORGE ARMSTRONG. 

Glficts. 

24, HANOVER SQUARE, W., 

LONDON. 






ie illustration on this frontispiece represents SIR CHARLES WARREN'S exploration of 
ath-east corner of the Haram, or Temple, Wall, at Jerusalem. The lower portion 
vail at this place is hidden by an accumulation of nearly 80 feet of debris ; through 

a sVinft \v=ic ciinl- tn urViorA thp foiinrlntinn ctnncs rpstpH nn tVip snliH rrvlr vvVipro 



tt\g Inforniatioii of Subscribers. 



SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE EARNESTLY DESIRED 
FOR CARRYING OUT THE OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. 



1. Those who subscribe a guinea or $5'OO a year are entitled 
to receive 

Post free the "QUARTERLY STATEMENT," 
which is the JOURNAL of the Society, containing 
Reports of work done by its Agents, and a record 
of discoveries made in the Holy Land ; as well as 
much valuable information bearing on Scriptural 
Subjects. 

Post free on application a Presentation volume. 

The Maps and Books published by the Society at 
greatly reduced prices. 

2. Those who subscribe half-a-guinea or $2*50 annually 
receive the "QUARTERLY STATEMENTS" free, and are 
entitled to the Books and Maps at the reduced price. 

The reduction in price is only granted by application at the 
Head Office, 24, Hanover Square, W. 

Cheques, Money Orders, and Postal Orders payable to the 
order of Mr. George Armstrong, Acting Secretary of the 
Fund. Money Orders may be made payable at Charing Cross. 
All Cheques and Orders may be crossed Coutts & Co. 

All subscriptions and donations are recorded in the 
"QUARTERLY STATEMENT." 

PALESTINE EXPLORATION FUND, 

24, Hanover Square, W., 

London. 



THE 



Palestine exploration fund 

A Society for the accurate and systematic 

investigation of the Archaeology, the Topography, the Geology 

and Physical Geography, the Manners and Customs 

of the Holy Land, for Biblical Illustration. 



PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 



I. THE SURVEY OF WESTERN PALESTINE* 

This magnificent work consists of " THE MEMOIRS," in 3 vols. ; " THE NAME 
LISTS," I vol. ; "THE SPECIAL PAPERS," i vol. ; "JERUSALEM," 
i vol.; "THE FLORA AND FAUNA OF PALESTINE," I vol. In all 
seven volumes, with " THE MAPS," great and small. 

The last two volumes, "JERUSALEM" with 50 plates in a Portfolio, and "FLORA 
AND FAUNA," can be had separately. The complete set consists of the 
following seven uniform volumes 410. For terms apply to the Secretary, 24,.. 
Hanover Square, W. 

THE MEMOIRS. Being the Notes taken in the Field, and 

written to accompany the sheets of the great Map, by Lieut. -Col. CONDER, 
D.C.L., LL.D..R.E., and Major-Gen. Sir H.H. KITCHENER, C.M.G., A.D.C., 
R.E. With additions, historical and archaeological by the Editors. In 
3 volumes, Illustrated by many hundreds of Plans and Sketches made 
specially for the work. 

THE NAME LISTS: Transliterated from the Arabic, with 
translation by Lieut. -Col. CONDER, and edited by the late Prof. PALMER, i vol. 

k THE SPECIAL PAPERS on the Archaeology, Topography,. 

&c. , of the Country. I vol. 

THE JERUSALEM VOLUME. A complete account of the 

Excavations and Researches in Jerusalem, with a portfolio of Fifty Plates. By 
Major-Gen. SIR CHARLES WARREN, K.C.B., G.C.M.G., F.R.S., R.E. In 
the same volume a history of the Architectural Monuments in the City, and an 
Account of his own and the German Researches, and Excavations in the City, 
by Lieut.-Col. CONDER, R.E., also an abstract of M. CHARLES CLERMONT- 
GANNEAU'S Researches and Excavations in the year 1874-5. * vo '- 



Publications of the Society continued. 
THE FLORA AND FAUNA OF PALESTINE. 

Richly Illustrated. By the Rev. CANON TRISTRAM, F.R.S., LL.D. i vo 



THE MAPS, great and small. 

2. THE RECOVERY OF JERUSALEM : with Fifty 

Illustrations. By Maj.-Gen. SIR CHARLES W. WILSON, K.C.B., and 
Maj.-Gen. SIR CHARLES WARREN, K.C.B. Price to Subscribers, 165. 
Non-subscribers, 21 s. Demy 8vo. 

3. TENT WORK IN PALESTINE. New Edition. By 

Lieut. -Col. CONDER, D.C.L., R.E. Price to Subscribers to the Fund, 4.5-. 6d. 
Non-subscribers, 6s. , 8vo. 

"A popular account of the Survey of Western Palestine, freely illustrated by 
drawings made by the author himself. This is not a dry record of the 
sepulchres, or a descriptive catalogue of ruins, springs, and valleys, but a 
continuous narrative full of observations upon the manners and customs of 
the people, the Biblical associations of the sites, the Holy City and its 
memories, and is based upon a six years' experience in the country itself. 
No other modern traveller has enjoyed the same advantages as Lieut. -Col. 
Conder, or has used his opportunities to better purpose." 

4. HETH AND MOAB. By Lieut-Col. CONDER, D.C.L., R.E. 

Price to Subscribers to the Fund, 4*. 6d. Non-subscribers, 6s. , 8vo. New 
and Revised Edition. 

"Under this title Lieut. -Col. Conder gives a narrativeas bright and as full of interest 
as ' Tent Work,' of the expedition for the Survey of Eastern Palestine. 
How the party began by a flying visit to North Syria, in order to discover 
the Holy City Kadesh of the children of Heth ; how they fared across 
the Jordan, and what discoveries they made there, will be found in this 
volume. " 

5. ACROSS THE JORDAN ; being a Record of Explorations 

in the Hauran. By GOTTLIEB SCHUMACHER, C.E., with Map, Sections, and 
a hundred and fifty Illustrations. Price to Subscribers to the Fund, 4^. 6d. 
Non-subscribers, 6s. , 8vo. An instalment of the Survey of Eastern Pales- 
tine. 

6. THE SURVEY OF THE JAULAN. By G. SCHU- 

MACHER, C.E. With Map, Special Plans, and a hundred and fifty Illustra- 
tions. Price to Subscribers to the Fund, 4.s. 6d. Non-subscribers, 
6s. , 8vo. An instalment of the Survey of Eastern Palestine. 

7. MOUNT SEIR. By Prof. E. HULL, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. 

Price to Subscribers to the Fund, 4*. 6d. Non-subscribers, 6s., 8vo. 

" This is a popular account of the Geological Expedition conducted by Prof. 
Hull for the Committee of the Palestine Fund. The part which deals with 
the Valley of Arabah will be found entirely new and interesting." 






Publications of the Society continued. 

8. SYRIAN STONE LORE. New Edition. By Lieut.-CoI. 

CONDER, D.C.L., R.E. Price to Subscribers to the Fund, 4*. (>d. Non- 
subscribers, 6s., 8vo. 

"This volume, the least known of Lieut. -Col. Conder's works, is, perhaps, the most 
valuable. It attempts a task never before approached the reconstruction 
, of Palestine from its monuments. It shows what we should know of Syria 

if there were no Bible, and it illustrates the Bible from the monuments." 

9. THIRTY YEARS' WORK : By SIR WALTER BESANT, M.A. 

Price to Subscribers to the Fund, 2s., by post 2J. %d. Non- subscribers, 
y. 6ef., by post 3-r. <)d., 8vo. 

" This work is a popular account of the researches conducted by the Society 
during the thirty years of its existence." 

10. ALTAIC HIEROGLYPHS AND HITTITE IN- 

SCRIPTIONS. By Lieut. -Col. CONDER, D.C.L., R.E. Price to Sub- 
scribers to the Fund, 3^. 6d. Non-subscribers, 5-r, , 8vo. 

"This book is an attempt to read the Hittite Inscriptions. The author has seen 
no reason to change his views since the publication of the work. " 

11. THE GEOLOGY OF PALESTINE AND ARABIA 

PETR^EA. By Prof. E. HULL, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. With Illustrations 
and coloured Maps. Uniform with " The Survey of Western Palestine." Price, 
to Subscribers to the Fund, izr. 6d. Non-subscribers, 2is., 410. 

12. NAMES AND PLACES IN THE OLD AND 

NEW TESTAMENTS AND APOCRYPHA, with references to 
Josephus, and their Modern Identifications. By GEORGE ARMSTRONG. 
Price to Subscribers to the Fund, 35. 6d. Non-subscribers, 6s., 8vo. 

" This is an index to all the names and places mentioned in the Bible and New 
Testament. Full references are given to the passages in which they occur. 
The modern names are given with notes, &c., and the identifications 
adopted are those that will be found on the new map published by the 
Society." 

13. THE HISTORY OF JERUSALEM (R. Bentley & Son, 

8, New Burlington Street). By SIR WALTER BESANT and PROFESSOR E. H. 
PALMER. Price to Subscribers to the Fund, S.T. 6d. Non-subscribers, 
7-r. 6V/., 8vo. 

"The ' History of Jerusalem,' which was originally published in 1871, and has 
long been completely out of print, covers a period and is compiled from 
materials not included in any other work, though some of the contents 
have been plundered by later works on the same subject. It begins with 
the siege by Titus and continues to the fourteenth century, including the 
Early Christian period, the Moslem invasion, the mediaeval pilgrims, the 
Mohammedan pilgrims, the Crusades, the Latin Kingdom, the victorious 
career of Saladin, the Crusade of Children, and many other little-known 
episodes in the history of the city and the country." 



Publications of the Society continued. 

14. THE BIBLE AND MODERN DISCOVERIES. New 

and cheap Edition, revised. With Map, Illustrations, and Index. Price to 
Subscribers, 5*. Non-subscribers, 7^. t>d., 8vo. 

" This work, written by a Member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine 
Exploration Fund, is an endeavour to present in a simple and popular, but 
yet a connected form, the Biblical results of twenty-two years' work of the 
Palestine Exploration Fund. The writer has also availed himself of the 
discoveries made by the American Expeditions and the Egyptian Explora- 
tion Fund, as well as discoveries of interest made by independent travellers. 

" The Bible story, from the call of the Abraham to the Captivity, is taken, and 
details given of the light thrown by modern research on the sacred annals. 
Eastern customs and modes of thought are explained whenever the writer 
thought that they illustrated the text. This plain and simple method has 
never before been adopted in dealing with modern discovery. 

" To the Clergy and Sunday School Teachers, as well as to all those who love 
the Bible, the writer hopes this work will prove useful. He is personally 
acquainted with the land ; nearly all the places spoken of he has visited, 
and most of them he has moreover sketched or painted. It should be 
noted that the book is admirably adapted for the School or Village 
Library." 

15. PALESTINE UNDER THE MOSLEMS. By 

GUY LE STRANGE. With Map, Illustrations, and Index. In one Vol. 
Price to Subscribers to the Fund, icxr. Non-subscribers, i6s., 8vo. 

" For a long time it had been desired by the Committee to present to the world 
some of the great hoards of information about Palestine which lie buried in 
the Arabic texts of the Moslem geographers and travellers of the Middle 
Ages. Some few of the works, or parts of the works, have been already 
translated into Latin, French, and German. Hardly anything has been 
done with them in English, and no attempt has ever been made to 
systematise, compare, and annotate them. 

" This has now been done for the Society by Mr. Guy le Strange. The work is 
divided into chapters on Syria, Palestine, Jerusalem, and Damascus, the 
provincial capitals and chief towns, and the legends related by the writers 
consulted. These writers begin with the ninth century and continue until 
the fifteenth. The volume contains maps and illustrations required for the 
elucidation of the text. 

" The Committee have great confidence that this work so novel, so useful to 
students of mediaeval history, and to all those interested in the continuous 
story of the Holy Land will meet with the success which its learned 
author deserves." 

16. LACHISH (Tell el Hesy). One of the five strongholds of the 

Amorites. An account of the excavations, with view of the Tell. Plans and 
Section, and upwards of 270 Drawings of the objects found. By Professor 
FLINDERS PETRIE. Price to Subscribers to the Fund, 6s. 6d. Non- 
subscribers, i or. 6d., 4to. 

17. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SURVEY OF 

WESTERN PALESTINE. Its Waterways, Plains, and Highlands, 
with reference to Map No. 6. By TRELAWNEY SAUNDERS. A few Copies 
left. Price to Subscribers, 3*. 6d., demy 8vo. 



Publications of the Society continued. 

18. THE CITY AND THE LAND. and EDITION, WITH 

PLAN OF JERUSALEM ACCORDING TO JOSEPHUS. A Series of Seven 
Lectures en various points connected with the Objects and Work of the 
PALESTINE EXPLORATION FUND, which were delivered in Hanover Square 
in May and June, 1892. (i) Ancient Jerusalem ; (2) The Future of Palestine ; 
(3) Natural History of Palestine ; (4) The General Work of the Fund ; 
(5) The Hittites ; (6) Tell el Hesy (Lachish) ; (7) The Modern Traveller in 
Palestine. By (i) Major-General Sir CHARLES W. WILSON, K.C.B. ; (2) 
Lieut -Col. CONDER, D.C.L., R.E. ; (3) Canon TRISTRAM, F.R.S. ; (4) Sir 
WALTER BESANT, M.A. ; (5) The Rev. WILLIAM WRIGHT, D.D. ; (6) Pro- 
fessor FLINDERS PETRIE, D.C.L. ; and (7) Canon DALTON, C.M.G. Price 
of Single Lecture to Subscribers to the Fund, 6d. } and that of the Volume, 
2s. 6d. Non-subscribers, is. and 3-r. 6d., 8vo. 

19. THE TELL AMARNA TABLETS, including the one 

found at Lachish. Translated from the Cuneiform Characters by Lieut-Col. 
C. R. CONDER, D.C.L., LL.D., M.R.A.S., R.E. The letters, numbering 
176, are from Palestine and Syria, were written about 1480 B.C. by Amorites, 
Phoenicians, Philistines, &c., to the King of Egypt, to Generals and other 
Officials, and include those from Jabin, King of Hazor, Adonizedek, King of 
Jerusalem, and Japhia, King of Gezer, Contemporaries of Joshua, referring to 
the Hebrew Conquest and naming 130 towns and countries. Price to 
Subscribers to the Fund, 3.?. 6d. Non-subscribers, $s., 8vo. New and revised 
Edition now ready. A 

20. ABILA, PELLA and NORTHERN 'AJLUN (of the 

Decapolis). By G. SCHUMACHER, C.E. These are three records of special 
surveys, with Maps and many Illustrations, bound in one volume. The ruins 
of Abila and Pella are of great extent, including Temples, Basilicas, Theatres, 
Paved Roads, &c. Northern 'Ajlun : 220 square miles of this important tract 
of country were surveyed, plans and drawings made of the important ruins of 
Gadara, Capitolias, Arbela, &c., and two great fields of Dolmens noted. 
Price to Subscribers to the Fund, 4^. 6d. Non-subscribers, 6s. 

21. A MOUND OF MANY CITIES, Tell el Hesy Exca- 

vated. By F. J. BLISS, M.A., Explorer to the Fund. With upwards of 250 
Illustrations. Price to Subscribers to the Fund, 3.5-. 6d., by post, 3-f. gd. 
Non-Subscribers, 6s. , by post, 6s. $d. 

22. JUDAS MACCAB/EUS AND THE JEWISH WAR 

OF INDEPENDENCE, with Map, by Lieut. -Col. CONDER, D.C.L., R.E. 
Price to Subscribers to the Fund, 3.5-., by post, $s. $d. Non- Subscribers, 
4J. 6d., by post, ^s. gd. New Edition. Just issued. This Book gives the 
history of the Jews from the fall of the Kingdom of Judah to the end of the 
Maccalxean War. It bridges over the period between the Old and New 
Testament. 

23. THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM, 1099 to 

1291, A.D. By Lieut. -Col. C. R. CONDER, LL.D., M.R.A.S., R.E. 

This work which is an account of Palestine, Syria, and Western Asia during 
the rule of the Franks, in the time of the Crusades, has a special interest at 
the present time, when attention is called to the condition of the Turkish 
Empire by recent events the condition of the Orientals being almost the 
same as that when Europe intervened in the Eastern question in the days of 
Godfrey de Bouillon and of King Richard Lionheart. Price to Subscribers to 
the Fund, 5-r. 6d. To Non-Subscribers, ?s. 6d. [Ready in January. 

24. INDEX TO THE QUARTERLY STATEMENTS, 

1869-1892 inclusive. Price to Subscribers to the Fund (in paper covers), 
is. 6d., by post, u. 8d. ; in cloth, 2s. 6d., by post, 2s. gd. Non-Subscribers, 
2s., by post, 2s. 2d., and 35. , by post, 3-r. 3</. , 8vo. 

THE QUARTERLY STATEMENT. A Journal of 

Palestine Research and Discovery. The first number was issued in 1869. Free 
to Subscribers to the Fund. Non-subscribers, 2s. 6d. Cloth cases, Green or 
Chocolate, for binding the four parts, is. and u. 6d. Back Numbers of the 
Quarterly Statement can be had, apply at 24, Hanover Square, W. 



A complete set of the books, 2-24, can be had by Subscribers to the 
Fund at the reduced price of ^5 i zs. 6d. on application to the Secretary, 
24, Hanover Square, W. Carriage paid to any part in the United 
Kingdom only. 

Branch Associations of the Bible Society, all Sunday Schools within the 
Sunday School Institute, the Sunday School Union, and the Wesleyan Sunday School 
Institute, will please observe that by a special Resolution of the Committee they are 
allowed to purchase the books, maps, &c. (by application to the Secretary only) at 
reduced price. 

Subscribers to the Fund are supplied with all Books, Maps, Photographs, 
Slides, &c., at the reduced prices direct from the Office, 24, Hanover Square, W. 






Photographs. 

A VERY LARGE COLLECTION. 

UNMOUNTED lOd. MOUNTED Is. each 



A NEW CATALOGUE OF PHOTOGRAPHS, 

Arranged alphabetically according to the Bible names of places, with 
notes and references. Subscribers, 6d. Non-subscribers, is. 

PHOTOS of Inscription from Herod's Temple and Moabite Stone, 
with translations, also of Jar found at the foundation of the S.E. corner 
of the wall of the Temple Area, 80 feet below the present surface, and 
fac-simile of the Siloam Inscription, with translation, sent direct from 
the Office, 24, Hanover Square, W., to Subscribers for 7^. each, post 
free. 

LANTERN SLIDES of the Bible places mentioned in the Catalogue 
of Photos can be had by Subscribers to the Fund on application to the 
Office. A large assortment to choose from. Price is. each, uncoloured. 



SEAL OF "HAGGAI, THE SON OF SHEBANIAH." 

Casts in metal of this Signet, 2s. each. 

INSCRIBED TABLET, found at Lachish. Casts of this Tablet, 
2s. 6d. each. 

ANCIENT HEBREW WEIGHT, from Samaria. Casts of 
this Weight, 2s. 6d. each. 

INSCRIBED WEIGHT OR BEAD, from Palestine. Casts, 
is. each. 

KcHreAATHE SECRETARY, 

Palestine Exploration Fund, 24, Hanover Square, W. 



jVlAPS Published by 

' fhe Socieftj. 



i. OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT MAP OF 

PALESTINE. In twenty sheets (see key map). Embracing both 
sides of the Jordan, and extending from Baalbek in the north to Kadesh 
Barnea in the south. Reduced from the surveys of the Palestine Exploration 
Fund and other sources. Scale, f of an inch = i mile. In twenty-one 
sheets and a cover. Showing modern names in black and all the latest 
identification ol the Old Testament and Apocrypha names in red. The 
New Testament, Josephus, and the Talmudic names in blue. The Tribal 
Possessions tinted in colours. Price to Subscribers to the Fund, 23^. Non- 
subscribers, 2. Postage to all foreign countries, is. extra. 

The same map can be had mounted on Cloth, Rollers, and varnished for hanging. 
Size, 8 feet by 6 feet. Price to Subscribers to the Fund, 2 4?. Non- 
subscribers, 3 3-r. 

The same map, mounted on Cloth, to fold in three parts in a neat portfolio. 
Price to Subscribers to the Fund, 2 ^s. Non-subscribers, 3 3^. 

The same map can be had mounted in any form to suit Subscribers, plus the 
additional cost of mounting. 

NOTE. A copy of" Names and Places" (No. 14) can be had with this Map by 
Subscribers for 2s. 6d. 



2. MODERN MAP OF PALESTINE. In twenty sheets. 

Embracing both sides of the Jordan, and extending from Baalbek in the 
north to Kadesh Barnea in the south. Reduced from the Surveys of the 
Palestine Exploration Fund and other sources. Scale, f of an inch = 
i mile. With modern names only. In twenty sheets and a cover. Price to 
Subscribers to the Fund, 23*. Non-subscribers, 2. Postage to all foreign 
countries, is. extra. 

The same map can be had mounted on Cloth, to fold in three parts in a 
neat portfolio. Price to Subscribers to the Fund, 2 4*. Non-subscribers, 
;33' 

The same map can be had mounted in any form to suit Subscribers, plus the 
additional cost of mounting. 



MAPS continued. 



3. OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT MAP OF 

PALESTINE in 12 sheets. Scale f of an inch = I mile. This 12-sheet 
map consists of sheets 5-7, 9-11, 13-15. 20-22 (see key map to the sheets), 
which include the whole of Palestine from Mount Hermon in the north to 
Kadesh Barnea in the south, and the districts beyond Jordan as far as they are 
surveyed. The modern names are in black, and all the latest identifications 
of the Old Testament and Apocrypha names in red ; the New Testament, 
Josephus and the Talmudic names in blue, the tribal boundaries are printed 
in colours. To Subscribers to the Fund, 12s. 6d. To the public, 2is. 
Postage to all foreign countries, is. extra. 

The same map can be had, mounted on Cloth, Rollers, and varnished for hanging, 
size 4$ feet by 6f feet, price to Subscribers 23^., to the public i us. 6d. ; 
Mounted on cloth to fold in two parts, in a neat case, price to Subscribers 245. , 
to the public i 125. 6d. ; Mounted on cloth to fold in two parts, in a neat 
portfolio, price to Subscribers 24^., to the public l 12s. 6d. ; or mounted in 
any other form desirable (cost of mounting extra). 



4. MODERN MAP OF PALESTINE in 12 sheets. Scale 

of an inch to a mile. (See key map.) This map has only the modern 
names on it. Price to Subscribers to the Fund, I2f. 6d. Non-subscribers, 
2is. 

Any single sheet of the maps can be had separately, price to 
Subscribers to the Fund is. 6d. ; mounted on cloth to fold in the 
pocket, suitable for travelling, 2s. ; to the public, zs. and 2s. 6d. 
(See key map.) 

A copy of "Names and Places" an Index to all the names in the Bible and Neu, 
Testament, with full references, can be had by Subscribers to the Fund, with 
the maps, at the reduced price ofzs. 6d. 



5. THE GREAT MAP OF WESTERN PALESTINE, 

on the scale of one inch to the mile, in twenty-six sheets, with a portfolio. 
Price to Subscribers to the Fund, 2 2s. Non-subscribers, 3 3^. 

The same map, mounted on Rollers for hanging, size 7 feet by 13 feet. Price te 
Subscribers to the Fund, .3 17^. 6d. Non-subscribers, .5 5*. 

Any single sheet of the Great Map (see Key Map to the sheets on next page), can be 
had separately, 2s. each. The three sheets, Nos. 13, 1 6 and 17, containing the 
nnv Railway from faffa to Jerusalem. Price 2s. each, or $s. 6d. the three. 
Non-subscribers, 2s. 6d. or js. 



MAPS continued. 

6. THE REDUCED MAP OF WESTERN PALESTINE 

showing WATER BASINS IN COLOR, AND FIVE VERTICAL SECTIONS, 
showing the natural profiles of the ground, according to the variations of the 
altitude above or below sea level. In six sheets and a wrapper. Scale % of an 
, inch = I mile. Price to Subscribers to the Fund, *js. 6d. Non-subscribers, 13^. 
Postage to all foreign countries, is. extra. 

The same map, mounted on Rollers for hanging. Price to Subscribers to he 
Fund, 12s. 6d. Non-subscribers, iSs. 

The same map, mounted on Cloth and in a neat case, 10^ in. by 8 in. Price to 
Subscribers to the Fund, I2s. 6d. Non-subscribers, 19^. 6d. 

7. PLAN OF JERUSALEM (modern) showing latest discoveries 

in red. Scale, 18 inches = I mile. Price to Subscribers to the Fund (on 
Cloth), 2s. Non-subscribers, 2s. 6d. 

8. PLAN OF JERUSALEM, according to Josephus. The 

Modern Walls of the City, &c. , are shown in black. The course of the Walls, 
&c., according to Josephus, with names in red. To this has been added a 
series of Contour lines of every 25 feet. Price to Subscribers to the Fund, is. 
Non-subscribers, is. 6d. 

>. THE SECTIONS of the Country north and south, and east 
and west, on two sheets. Price 2s. (Western Palestine only.) 



Application for Maps should be made to 

THE SECRETARY, 

Palestine Exploration Fund, 

24, Hanover Square, W. 

of 

EDWARD STANFORD, 

26 and 27, Cockspur Street, 

Charing Cross, London. 



DIAGRAM Shewing the extent of the Old and New Testament Maps and the Great Map 
Western Palestine published by the Palestine Exploration Fund. 



3540 



3624. 



32-4 




3d- 



I Palestine Exploration Fund Surveys IflPl other Surveys. 

The Old and New Testament Map in 20 Sheets, scale three-eighths of an inch to the mile, consists 
Sheets i 16 and 20 23. 

The Old and New Testament Map in 12 sheets, scale three-eighths of an ch to the mile, consis 
Sheets 5 7, 9 n, 13 15, 20 22. 

The Great Map of Western Palestine scale one inch to the mile, consists of Sheets I XXVI. 



Cbe Survey of Palestine. 



(Consists of the following four Volumes, uniform in size 

;and appearance with The Memoirs of the "Survey of 

Western Palestine," 4to: 

THE SURVEY OF EASTERN PALESTINE. 

(In one Volume). 
BY LIEUT.-COL. C. R. CONDER, D.C.L., LL.D., R.E. 

This Survey, commenced by Lieut. -Col. Conder, and stopped by order of the 
(Turkish Government, consists of 500 square miles. 

The country is full of interest, and abounds with ruins of places Biblical and 
Classical. Among these ruins are most wonderful fields of dolmens and stone 
[circles. Many drawings of these are given, and there are also special plans of 
(all the most important ruins in the district surveyed. 

The map of the Survey, reduced to the scale }ths of an inch= I mile, the same 
as that of the Map published by the Fund, is added to the volume. 

All LieuL-Col. Conder's drawings and plans, numbering more than 350, are 
I inserted. 

The Memoirs supplied by Lieut. -Col. Conder were printed under his supervision. 
Among them are descriptions, with plans and drawings, of Heshbon, Amman 
i(Rabboth Ammon), 'Arak el Emir (the Castle of Hyrcanus), the Persian building 
formerly considered a Byzantine Church, and other interesting remains. 

THE FAUNA AND FLORA OF SINAI, 
PETRA, AND THE WADY 'ARABAH. 

BY H. CHICHESTER HART, B.A., F.L.S. 

Mr. Chichester Hart accompanied Professor Hull in his Geological Expedition 
through Sinai and Palestine in 1883 as Naturalist. This volume is the outcome 
of the journey. It contains : 

A. An Analysis of the Fauna and Flora of Sinai, with general remarks on its 
botany and that ot the Dead Sea Basin. Insecta. Mollusca. Reptilia. 
Aves and Mammalia. 

This volume is illustrated with Maps and Plates, which are produced (without 
colour) in the same style and equal to those in Canon Tristram's " Flora and Fauna 
of Palestine. " 






The Survey of Palestine continued. 

THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCHES 
IN PALESTINE. 

(In two Volumes). 

BY CHARLES CLERMONT-GANNEAU, LL.D., 
Membre de I'Instittil, Professor au College de France. 

Many years have elapsed since the drawings made for this expedition 
were placed in the hands of the Committee by M. Ciermont-Ganneau. They are 
most exquisitely drawn by M. Lecomte, and are chiefly of architectural value. It 
is most desirable that they should no longer be withheld from the world. The only 
possible way of publishing them is by subscription in this manner. 

The illustrations are upwards of 1 ,000 in number. 

The Committee have found it necessary to arrange for the publication of the 
Researches in two volumes, instead of one volume, as originally intended. Vol. II., 
which is devoted to Palestine, is published in advance for the reasons stated in the 
Prefatory Note. Vol. I. treats of Jerusalem and neighbourhood, is well forward, 
and, when ready, will be sent out to the first 250 Subscribers, free of any further 
charge. 



The edition is limited to 500 sets. 

The Subscribers to the first edition (250 copies) of the " Survey of Western 
Palestine " are entitled to receive these volumes at the reduced price of 7 75. od. 
No copies will be disposed of under the price of 7 Js. od. the set. 

The first 250 Subscribers are entitled to the reduction in price, whether 
they be Subscribers to the first work or not; but the price will be 12 izs. to 
all subsequent Subscribers, unless they are Subscribers to the "Survey of Western 
Palestine." 

Three volumes are ready and have been issued to Subscribers, in order of 
application. 

An Illustrated Circular giving further particulars will be sent, post free, on 
application. 



Application should be made to the Secretary, at the office of the Fund, 
24, HANOVER SQUARE, W. 



THC 



RAISED MAP - 
PALESTINE. 



OF 



Constructed from the Surveys of the Palestine Exploration Fund, 
and other sources, by 

GEORGE ARMSTRONG 

(OF THE SURVEY PARTY), 

Acting Secretary to the Fund. 



Scale | of an inch to one mile or T _.i^, being identical 
with that of the Map. 



PUBLISHED BY 



Cbe Palestine Exploration fund, 

24, HANOVER SQUARE, LONDON, W. 



THE RAISED MAP OF PALESTINE 

Is constructed on the basis of the recently issued Old and New- 
Testament Map. It embraces the whole of Western Palestine, from 
Baalbeck in the North, to Kadesh Barnea in the South, and shows 
nearly all that is known on the East of Jordan. 

The natural features of the Country stand out prominently, and 
show at a glance the relative proportions of the mountains, heights, 
valleys, plains, &c. 

Names are given to the coast towns and a few of the inland ones ; 
other towns are numbered to correspond with a reference list of 
names. 



The seas, lakes, marshes and perennial streams are coloured blue, 
the Old and New Testament Sites are marked in red, the plains green, 
the rising ground, hills and mountains in various tints, the olive groves 
and wooded parts of the country stippled in green, and the main roads 
are shown in a thin black line. 



Casts in Fibrous Plaster, Coloured and Framed. 

Price to Subscribers to the Fund, .10 IDS. 

To the Public ^13 135. 

The Map measures 7 feet 6 inches by 4 feet, and is on view at the 
Office of the Fund, 24, Hanover Square, W. 



PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE RAISED MAP, 8 ins. by 4 ins., Is. each. 



r A NEW EDITION OF THE COLLOTYPE PRINT 

of the Raised Map, 20 ins. by 28^ ins., now ready. Price to Subscribers, 

2S. $d. ; Non-Subscribers, y. 3^., post free. 



LANTERN SLIDES OF THE RAISED MAP, 
PLAIN, Is. 3d.; COLOURED, as. pd. each, post free. 



Trje <>ecietaiy ( ^4, r*]<RttoVer HxsjUare, W. 



SUBSCRIPTION FORM. 

To THE SECRETARY, 

Please send me One Set of Books Nos. 2-24 as noted in list of 
publications, for which I enclose a Cheque for 

Signature 



Cheques and Money Orders to be made payable to the order of 
Mr. GEORGE ARMSTRONG, Acting Secretary to the Fund. All Cheques 
and Orders should be crossed " Coutts & Co." 

PALESTINE EXPLORATION FUND, 

24, HANOVER SQUARE, LONDON, W. 

HARRISON AND SONS, PRINTERS IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY, ST. MARTIN'S LANE, LONDON, W.C 







PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE 
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET 

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY 



D 

182 

C7 



Conder, Claude Reignier 
The Latin Kingdom of 
Jerusalem